New Delhi: The BJP's national executive will meet on April 3 and 4 in Bengaluru to take stock of the party's performance and that of the government it leads at the Centre in the last six months and to strategise for crucial state elections in Bihar and Bengal. A day earlier, on April 2, the BJP's office-bearers will meet.
Prime Minster Narendra Modi is expected to be in the Karnataka capital for all three days and attend all sessions.
The BJP's national executive is supposed to meet every three months, but this meeting is being held after a gap of seven months. A meeting was reportedly earlier planned for January this year, but it had to be put off as PM Modi was tied up then with the visit of US President Barack Obama and before that the party was busy with elections in Jammu and Kashmir.
The national executive - made up of over 100 party leaders - last met in August 2014, to ratify the appointment of party president Amit Shah.
At the Bengaluru conclave the party will put great emphasis on the preparedness in Bihar, where elections are due later this year. The party's debacle in the Delhi elections punctured its extended euphoria after the national elections, brought about by gains in state elections held in Haryana, Maharashtra, Jharkhand and Jammu and Kashmir.
The BJP formed government alone or with an ally in all those four states. In the Delhi elections held last month, however, it was reduced to playing bystander, winning only three of the capitals 70 seats as compared to 32 in the last election. The other 67 have been won by the Aam Aadmi Party.
In Bihar, a must-win state for PM Modi, who needs to urgently bolster his numbers that the Rajya Sabha or upper house of Parliament, the BJP faces a formidable opponent in the Nitish Kumar-Lalu Yadav-Congress combine. The Bihar battle has a personal element for PM Modi as Nitish Kumar's JDU had snapped ties with the BJP over PM Modi.
Elections are due in Bengal early next year and the BJP is eyeing big gains in the state, where is has been a minor player so far.
The meeting will be held during the recess of the Budget session of Parliament.