GUWAHATI: BJP national president Amit Shah will arrive here on March 24 to take stock of the saffron party's preparations for the upcoming panchayat polls, which have become a crucial factor ahead of the Lok Sabha election next year.BJP state president Ranjit Kumar Das said the national party president will have meetings with 26,000 booth presidents, 303 mandal presidents, 38 district presidents on March 24, with an aim in mind to make panchayat bodies " Congress mukt" ahead of the parliamentary election."For the first time, our national president will be addressing such a large number of our party's grassroots leaders and office bearers. This is going to be the biggest gathering of leaders who are heading different levels of our party units. Amit ji's presence is going to a big morale booster for our workers and grassroots leaders," Das said."We have already geared up our grassroots workers for the panchayat polls, and we are confident that we will be able to free the rural local bodies from Congress's hold," he added.Senior BJP leaders said the national president's visit to the state for the meetings is an indication of the degree of importance that the saffron party has attached to the panchayat election. Many feel the panchayat poll outcome is going to set the tempo for next year's Lok Sabha polls.BJP leaders said by wresting the panchayat bodies from Congress, BJP's victory graph in the state is going to be complete, with the party having won all the elections held here between 2014 and next year's parliamentary polls."We did extremely well by winning seven out of 14 parliamentary seats in 2014, which by itself was the biggest victory for BJP in the state. Then in 2016 we swept the polls and for the first time BJP came to power under the leadership of Sarbananda Sonowal. Then we garnered the majority of the municipal bodies and town committees. So, by winning the majority in panchayat bodies we will compete our victory graph," Das said.Das said that grassroots-level party workers' meetings are being held every day in different parts of the state for preparing the ground for panchayat polls."The date of panchayat election has not been announced yet. But we have already written to the state election authority to hold it as early as possible so that people of the state get the benefits of decentralization of power. We are going to the people with our chief minister's strong stand on fighting corruption and our government's agenda for inclusive development," Das said.

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