BJP targets over 200 seats in 2018 Assembly polls, says Tomar

Bhopal : The ruling BJP in Madhya Pradesh aims to sweep the state Assembly polls due next year and win over 200 seats, Union minister Narendra Singh Tomar said today.

The party will also work to win all the 29 Lok Sabha seats in the state in the 2019 general election, he said."We have set a target of winning more than 200 seats in the next Assembly polls in Madhya Pradesh and also all the 29 Lok Sabha seats in the 2019 general elections," Tomar told reporters here.

Tomar, the minister for urban development and panchayati raj, and Union social justice and empowerment minister Thawar Chand Gehlot, both of whom are MPs from Madhya Pradesh, are in the city to attend the BJP meeting to be held by party president Amit Shah, who is on a three-day visit to the state from today.

"It is a matter of pride that Shah has come to Bhopal for a visit. It will enthuse the party workers with new vigour in the state," Tomar said. In the 230-member Legislative Assembly, the BJP currently holds 165 seats.

Currently, the BJP holds 26 out of the total 29 Lok Sabha seats in the state.The Guna and Chhindwara seats were won by Congress' Jyotiraditya Scindia and Kamal Nath, respectively, in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls.Later, in the byelection to Ratlam-Jhabua seat, which was necessitated following the demise of MP Dilip Singh Bhuria, the BJP lost the seat to Congress' Kantilal Bhuria.