The run up to 2019 has been kick started

The BJP, as a party, is in election mode  since 2013 inspite of being in power at centre from 2014 . Never ever have I seen a ruling political party working so hard and relentlessly to strengthen the organisation and always battle ready mode . Usually when the party comes to power than the leaders and worker get busy enjoying the fruits of "Satta" but this current disposition,read NAMO and SHAH, is of a different breed . They just don't seem to sit back and relax , Always on the toes .

The BJP just got out of the gruelling gujarat battle and have already kick started the campaign for '19 Lok Sabha . When the opposition is still reeling under to find leadership and issues to nail BJP ,the NAMO SHAH team have already caught them off guard by setting the agenda for the election . The duo have not only got a strategy in place but have started to implement the same . The tonality of '19 campaign was already set by the PM in the first two public interview given to the two TV news channel . From the tone of the PM's interview , This election will be basically fought in presidential form with special focus on Women , Youth , Lower income voter and the issues on which the Team NAMO will build the campaign will be International image of india , Corruption free government , Infrastructure and policies like Ujjwala, Mudra Bank , Rural electrification and Highway and covertly Hindu agenda will definitely be a major pillar and specially so in in minorities dominated states . To maintain the tally of '14 ,The team is looking to increase the catchment by garnering seats from new geographical areas . Special focus will be on North East , West bengal ,Kerala to offset the loss on sitting MP's .Already one can see the organisation in these geographical areas has gone in overdrive to position BJP as the main party . Hemanta Biswas is the key man for North East and he has been delivering back to back . Congress bosses must be shuffling in their beds for he has turned out to be a real difference between the two . Seems the the two areas i.e. South and North East india ,where BJP was weakest ,will see BJP making major inroads .

The tone of the campaign is set by few subtle message by giving due importance to women in the republic day parade, selection of Padam Shri's and the contingent of ASEAN head of states . First time in the history of indian have so many heads of states attended the parade . This is a very big message and BJP are surely going to build the campaign on this narrative.

Also Since this election will be again in the presidential form of referendum so the party will drop a couple of sitting MP's because vote will be casted either in favor of Modi or against him so candidate will not play a major role in most of the seats . Major criterion will be caste of candidate and the image of the candidate . Its quite possible that there might be a spike of number of women candidates by clearly giving the message to the electorate . The way Padam Shri awardees were chosen this year , One can very well conclude that a lot of fresh faces with no baggage might be given ticket for Lok Sabha . The old guards like Joshi , Advani,Shatrughan Sinha and similar politicos will be pushed into oblivion. The sole criterion of candidate selection will be winnability and not whether being backed by certain leader as the Duo has demolished all the camps. Another phenomenon which we might see in this election will be that BJP might induct a lot of opposition party leader who are ready to jump the gun and have a certain base vote with them . But this will mainly happen in last minute to give maximum damage to opposition and minimum damage to BJP as the local leadership of BJP will have very less time to make any damage and opposition will have very less time to recover . Informed sources have been telling that a lot of opposition leaders are ready to jump the gun but the BJP leadership is keeping them warm and will only induct at the end time based on the ground situation at that time and without hurting the emotion of local existing aspirants .

My observation is that 2019 LS election will be a watershed election for a lot of political parties . The congressman's will need to work really hard to improve the tally . Since they are up against the might of NAMO and SHAH they will have to match their energy and resources to even be in contention or they might face even worse situation than what they saw in '14. The worst will be  if they donot show an improvement than the will be very difficult to manage the herd .Moreover the top leadership in congress , the sole pan indian opposition party , is not only old but I don't see any fire in them to resurrect . They are busy either enjoying the life or doing armchair politics sitting in the comforts of their drawing rooms in lutyens delhi . Till the time they go out and connect with electorate they do not stand a chance . The second level of leadership in the congress is also one who are also disconnected from the ground realities as most of them are sons and wards of old congressmen and are there because of the access which they enjoyed . What is quite disheartening to see is that the new generation of congress leaders are just letting it slip out of their hand . It seems they are under the impression that power is a revolving door and they are waiting for nature to do the honours for them. Same is the case with some regional opposition parties like DMK , SP , BSP , BJD , NCP as the patriarch are all in their seventies or more and the heir are busy enjoying life . Except probably TMC , TRS and less said the better about Left which will fight the battle of existence in this election . Miracles do happen but taking stock of the current situation its Team NAMO for '19 .