BJP President Amit Shah on Monday made a strong pitch for the party's return to power at the Centre in the 2019 parliamentary polls which, he said, was linked to a change of government in Uttar Pradesh in assembly elections early next year.
"The road to Delhi in 2019 will be via Lucknow. You bring about change of regime in Lucknow. Modi will come back as the Prime Minister in 2019," Shah told a rally organised on the sidelines of the party's two-day National Executive meet here.
The Bharatiya Janata Party chief urged the voters in Uttar Pradesh, the country's most populous state that will go to the assembly polls early next year, to be cautious about the politics of two state-based parties -- the Samajwadi Party of Mulayam Singh Yadav and Mayawati-led Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP).
"The monopoly of these two parties (SP and BSP), going on for the last 20 years, should end," he said.
Since the '90s that was marked by the beginning of Mandal politics, the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party have been ruling the state alternatively.
Shah told the gathering that when the BJP last ruled Uttar Pradesh with the likes of Kalyan Singh and Rajnath Singh at the helm of affairs, there was "good governance" in the state.
"When the BJP ruled the state, industry was coming. There was water for agriculture and women and young girls were safe," he said.
--IANS
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