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NDA set towards 400 seat mark, BJP to top-up in UP: Piyush Goyal

Piyush Goyal told HT that while PM Narendra Modi will win Varanasi with a record margin, the BJP will bag more Lok Sabha seats in UP as compared to 2019.

Published on: May 29, 2024, 08:26:29 IST
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Varanasi: Amidst hectic campaigning by the top BJP leadership for the last phase on June 1, Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said that the NDA was well within the target to cross the 400-seat mark in the 2024 elections.

Commerce, Industry, Consumer Affairs and Textile Minister meeting entrepreneurs in Varanasi. (HT Photo)
Commerce, Industry, Consumer Affairs and Textile Minister meeting entrepreneurs in Varanasi. (HT Photo)

He said while Prime Minister Narendra Modi will win Varanasi with a record margin, the party will bag more LS seats in UP as compared to 2019. “The atmosphere is superbly in favour of the BJP and the NDA all over country and there is no anti-incumbency against the Modi government,” he added. Minister Goyal, who also holds the consumer affairs and textile portfolios, has been camping in the city for the past two days meeting entrepreneurs and traders.

With Poorvanchal going to polls on June 1, the party has pushed key leaders to tackle particular segments in Varanasi with Home Minister Amit Shah conducting the entire electoral exercise, Party President JP Nadda is moving in and out of Varanasi and Cabinet Minister for Women and Child Development Smriti Irani coming to the Holy City today to woo the women voters in PM’s constituency.

Talking to Hindustan Times, Minister Goyal said that the business community in the city was very happy with the GST and the rapid mitigation of their grievances by both the Center and State governments.

When asked about his own election from Mumbai North and the NDA's performance in Maharashtra, he said he was very confident about the NDA's doing well in his home state. He also added that the BJP will trump up its performance in West Bengal so muchthat the public will be amazed at the results.

While no BJP leader will tell you the NDA’s final performance, it is quite evident that they all are convinced that the BJP will add at least a score seats more than the last time with UP contributing some 70 seats to BJP’s kitty. Minister Goyal refused to go into numbers and was clear that the NDA will breach the 400 mark.

Talking on specific issues, he said that India will negotiate the FTA with Britain only after the new government is formed post July 4. He said the FTA with Canada is stuck till the time the Justin Trudeau government makes conducive atmosphere for talks.

“ India will do FTAs with other countries based on its interests and will not be forced to make any concessions,” he added. With only two days left before the final phase goes into silent mode, the BJP leadership is confident of a strong undercurrent in favour of PM Modi for the third time.

 
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Shishir Gupta

Shishir Gupta is Executive Editor at Hindustan Times and one of India's top journalists covering national security, strategic affairs, foreign policy and geopolitics. Over the past three decades, he has extensively reported on India's military, diplomatic and security landscape, covering every major conflict and national security challenge, from the 1999 Kargil War and the 2020 East Ladakh standoff to Operation Sindoor in 2025. He has also covered major terror attacks, including the IC-814 hijacking, the 26/11 Mumbai attacks and the 2025 Pahalgam terror strike, along with numerous Pakistan-backed terrorist incidents in the Kashmir Valley and across India. He has reported on national and state elections for more than three decades. A recognised authority on strategic affairs, Gupta has covered India's nuclear programme since the Pokhran-II (Shakti series) tests in May 1998 and has written extensively on global nuclear issues, Indian diplomacy and the country's expanding global outreach. He has also reported widely on international conflicts and terrorism, with a special focus on the Indian subcontinent. Gupta has interviewed Prime Minister Narendra Modi more than four times, including Modi's first interview with the print media after becoming Prime Minister in May 2014. His other interviews include three with the Dalai Lama, as well as conversations with Benjamin Netanyahu, Amit Shah, Yogi Adityanath, S. Jaishankar, Nirmala Sitharaman and Piyush Goyal. He is the author of Indian Mujahideen: The Enemy Within (Hachette, 2011) and Himalayan Face-off: Chinese Assertion and Indian Riposte (Hachette, 2014). He was awarded the Chevening-Wolfson Joint Scholarship at Wolfson College, University of Cambridge, UK, in 1998 and participated in the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) of the US State Department in 2006. He received the Ben Gurion Prize from Israel in 2011 and the K. Subrahmanyam Prize for Strategic Studies in 2015 from the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA). Since 2024, he has hosted Point Blank, Hindustan Times' weekly YouTube show on global geopolitics.

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