The Bharatiya Janata Party on Sunday said it has pledged to form governments in Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Odisha, NDTV reported.

At a national executive meeting in Hyderabad, Union Home Minister Amit Shah declared that the BJP will end the “family rule” in West Bengal and Telangana. He said that the next 30 to 40 years will be the “era of the BJP”.

Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, who briefed reporters after the meeting, said that the home minister believed the recent victories of the BJP in the bye-polls was because the public approved of the party’s “politics of development and performance”.

In the bye-polls, the BJP scored major wins in Uttar Pradesh and Tripura.

On Sunday, Shah also spoke of the recent murders of a tailor in Rajasthan and a chemist in Maharashtra over the remarks of suspended BJP spokesperson Nupur Sharma, according to NDTV. The meeting however did not discuss Sharma’s comments about Prophet Muhammad in particular, PTI reported.

Shah stated that communalism in the county would end once the “politics of appeasement” was eradicated, NDTV reported.

Shah also described the Supreme Court’s verdict on the plea by Zakia Jafri’s, the wife of former Congress MP Ehsan Jafri, as historic.

The Supreme Court on June 24 dismissed the plea challenging the report of a Special Investigation Team that had cleared Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a case pertaining to the 2002 Gujarat riots.

A mob went on a rampage in Gulberg Society on February 28, 2002, setting fire to homes. Sixty-nine persons died, including former Congress MP Ehsan Jafri who was hacked to death. Modi was the chief minister of Gujarat at that time.

“Prime Minister Modi kept his silence while facing the probe over his alleged role in the riots and kept his faith in the Constitution, drinking poison like Lord Shiva,” Shah said during the meeting.

Meanwhile, Modi told the BJP cadre to learn from the mistakes of the “parties that ruled India for a long time”, in an indirect reference to the Congress, PTI reported.

Modi also said the country was fed up with dynastic politics and dynastic parties, adding that it would be difficult for them to survive for long.

He urged his party workers to stay connected to the citizens and not make fun of the parties that were on a road to decline.

Modi also told the party workers to reach out to deprived and non-elite persons among Muslims and other minorities for development and welfare programmes launched under the BJP government, The Hindu reported.

The prime minister reportedly said that the BJP had carried out development work for the minorities and marginalised communities for eight years and it was time to see how it has impacted the citizens.

People have rejected BJP, says TMC

The Trinamool Congress, meanwhile, reacted to the BJP’s announcement to end the family rule in West Bengal, saying the voters had rejected the saffron party last year, PTI reported.

Assembly elections in West Bengal were held in eight phases in 2021. The Trinamool Congress won the election by registering a victory in 213 seats, while the BJP won 77 constituencies. The Trinamool Congress secured a higher vote share than the BJP in all phases of the election, but the difference in the vote shares of the two parties was the highest in the last two rounds.

Trinamool Congress State General Secretary Kunal Ghosh said that Shah was unable to digest the “humiliating defeat” in the polls.

“If the BJP holds a mirror to itself, the party will see how it has been abetting politics of dynasty,” Ghosh said. “It inducted the entire Adhikari family of Bengal’s Purba Medinipur district in its fold – Suvendu and his two brothers – and Amit Shah had invited Suvendu’s father Sisir Adhikari in his public meeting. And what about the Scindia family and Kailash Vijayvargiya’s son? In Trinamool Congress, no such things happen.”