BJP president Amit Shah has arrived here to preside over the party’s national council meeting to be held over the weekend.
The highpoint is a rally to be addressed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the beach on Saturday, his first public meeting since the Uri terror attack.
Even as the government makes its case against Pakistan-sponsored terror at the United Nation’s General Assembly, the national council meeting, aimed at underscoring the legacy of former Jan Sangh leader Deendayal Upadhyaya and the Modi government’s pro-poor schemes, is overshadowed by the unrest in Jammu and Kashmir.
Mr. Modi’s speech is being keenly anticipated, as is the party’s articulation of its political line on Kashmir and the Uri attack.
The BJP has been under pressure from the cadre over an appropriate response to the Uri attack.
While the party has been aggressive against Pakistan in the past, it has been constrained in its rhetoric now as it is in power.
Mr. Modi held a closed-door meeting with the party’s core group on Wednesday evening, reportedly to discuss the message over the Uri attack and the Kashmir unrest.
The national council meeting will begin with a meeting of office-bearers on Friday, to be addressed by Mr. Shah.
“There will be a public rally to be addressed by Mr. Modi on the Kozhikode beach on Saturday. On Sunday, at the meeting of the national council, Mr. Shah and Mr. Modi will speak,” BJP national secretary Shrikant Sharma said.
Mr. Sharma said that the meeting would focus on Deendayal Upadhyaya, whose birth centenary is being marked by the party and the government.
He was elected Jan Sangh president in Kozhikode (then Calicut) in December 1967.
“The aim of holding the meeting in Kozhikode is to pay homage to Deendayalji’s memory,” said Mahesh Sharma, chief of the Deendayal Upadhyaya Research Institute.
