Bharatiya Janata Party's national general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya on Saturday said that overconfidence caused the party's defeat in the 2018 Assembly polls in Madhya Pradesh while emphasising that the BJP will not make that mistake this time and would win more than 160 seats in the 230-member Assembly in the year-end polls.
"I have said earlier too that we made a mistake last time and were overconfident. This time we are not overconfident. I am saying with guarantee that we will win more than 160 seats (in the 2023 polls)," he told the media as he elaborated on the Shivraj Singh Chouhan government's achievements in power generation, infrastructure, and other sectors, as quoted by news agency PTI.
In the 2018 Assembly election, the Congress formed a government in Madhya Pradesh under Kamal Nath but it collapsed in March 2020 because of the rebellion by MLAs loyal to Jyotiraditya Scindia, paving the way for the BJP to return to power under Chouhan.
In his interaction, the BJP leader categorically denied speculation of infighting in the saffron party ahead of the state polls, asserting that 50,000 BJP workers from Indore division will attend the 'Vijay Sankalp Sammelan' to be addressed by Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Sunday.
"In the past, attempts were made to mislead the public with bogus (polls) surveys. But during Shah's visit on Sunday, the message that will go across will leave no room for confusion about the Assembly poll results," he said, as quoted by PTI.
Shah, also being a key BJP strategist, will interact with booth-level workers of the ruling party in Indore for the first time ahead of upcoming state polls.
In Indore, the main political centre of the crucial Malwa-Nimar region which has 66 of the total 230 Assembly seats, he will speak to booth-level BJP workers, as per PTI.
Notably, Vijayvargiya was on Saturday retained as the party's national general secretary. He said he spoke to party chief JP Nadda to thank him for the appointment.
"Nadda told me he wanted to make me something else, but for the time being it is fine that I continue as general secretary," Vijayvargiya said in a lighter vein, as quoted by PTI.
The BJP National President rejigged the list of the party's central office-bearers earlier in the day.
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