That would be three more seats than what the BJP won in 2014.
Virendra Singh Rawat reports.
With the Lok Sabha election less than a year away, Bharatiya Janata Party President Amit Anilchandra Shah bets on Uttar Pradesh for the party repeating its 2014 performance and returning to power at the Centre.
Addressing a public meeting at Chandauli district in eastern UP on Sunday, August 5, Shah recalled that in the run-up to the 2014 election, he had said the path to victory in that Lok Sabha poll would traverse through UP.
"I am repeating the same today for the 2019 Lok Sabha poll that UP would play a key role in forming the next government at the Centre and re-electing the Narendra Modi government," he added.
In 2014, the BJP won 71 of the 80 Lok Sabha seats in UP. Its ally, the Apna Dal, won two. Shah said he was confident the tally will rise to 74.
On the Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party combine, Shah said even if the Rahul Gandhi-led Congress joined hands with them, the BJP would emerge victorious.
He said the Modi government had given over Rs 8 trillion to UP, compared to Rs 3.3 trillion by the Manmohan Singh government during 2004 and 2014.
"The BJP government has given projects like the Bundelkhand Defence Corridor and Purvanchal Expressway to the state for faster socio-economic development," Shah said.
Shah was in Chandauli to attend a programme to rename Mughalsarai railway junction after Deen Dayal Upadhyay, the Jan Sangh (the BJP's political parent) president who was found murdered in a train compartment at Mughalsarai station in 1967.
