New Delhi: BJP president Amit Shah on Sunday held deliberations with the party's core group leaders from three Assembly poll-bound states. Party sources said Shah held separate meetings with leaders from Maharashtra, Jharkhand and Haryana, all of which would go to polls later this year, at the BJP headquarters here. The deliberations among the party leaders are believed to have focussed on the preparation for the polls, with Shah taking stock of the prevailing political situation and discussing the BJP's strategy.

Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis told reporters that the state BJP leaders, in their meeting with Shah, discussed the party's strategy and prepared a roadmap to retain power in the state. He expressed confidence that the BJP and its allies, including the Shiv Sena, would register a massive victory like the one it had in the Lok Sabha polls. Shah told them to work hard not only for the seats where the BJP will fight, but also in those where its allies will contest, Fadnavis said.

The BJP is in power in all the three states and chief ministers of Haryana and Jharkhand also attended the exercise. The saffron party's main rival in all these states is either the Congress, as in Haryana, or an opposition alliance in which it is a major presence, as in Maharashtra and Jharkhand.

The saffron party decimated its rivals in these states in the recent Lok Sabha polls but Assembly elections will be fought on state-specific issues, with the performance of the respective state governments likely to be central planks.