New Delhi: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), in its national executive meeting, has deferred its internal polls, which effectively means that party president Amit Shah, whose three-year tenure ends in January 2019, will continue to steer the party in the parliamentary polls next year.Shah took over from Rajnath Singh as the party president in July 2014 when the latter joined Modi’s cabinet. By appointing Shah to finish the remainder of Singh’s term, the party stuck to its convention that the president would not assume any role in the government. In the parliamentary polls that year, Shah had guided the party to an unprecedented win – 73 out of 80 seats – in Uttar Pradesh, making a compelling case for himself to assume the top job. In January 2016, he was elected unopposed as party president, for a full three-year term. The decision of deferment was almost a foregone conclusion, given that the duo of Amit Shah and Narendra Modi has practically been taking all strategic and tactical decisions in the party. Many BJP insiders see this centralisation as a significant departure from the way the party functioned before Modi-Shah started to pull all the strings. However, since the duo has also turned around the saffron party’s electoral fortunes under its leadership, intra-party democracy has dropped a notch loweer in the party’s priority list.Since the party’s convention is that a president shall not serve more than two consecutive terms, the election in January would have precipitated a debate in the rank and file months ahead of the crucial parliamentary polls scheduled in April, 2019. With Shah getting a go-ahead from the party to lead the BJP’s campaign, he can now concentrate on the upcoming Lok Sabha elections single-mindedly. The deferment decision was taken at the two-day meeting which Shah had called to discuss the party’s preparations ahead of elections in four states – Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Mizoram – and the parliamentary polls, NDTV reported, citing party sources.Shah declared that the party will return to power in 2019 with a bigger mandate than the last one. “We will come with an absolute majority. “Sankalp ki shakti ko koi parajit nahi kar sakta (No one can defeat the strength of determination)”, Shah was reported as having told party leaders.The meeting reportedly adopted the slogan of “Ajey BJP” (invincible BJP) for the election campaign. Shah also discussed the party’s prospects in Telangana, where elections could be held along with the other four following chief minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao’s decision to dissolve the assembly early.Modi is expected to address the party gathering on Sunday. According to NDTV, Modi and Shah may make the Union government’s achievements, both at social and economic levels, the BJP’s main electoral plank.ANI reported that Shah on Saturday told party office bearers that there is an attempt by the opposition to create “confusion” among Scheduled Caste voters vis-s-vis BJP’s stand on Dalit issues. However, he added, it won’t impact the BJP’s prospects in 2019.NDTV said, “In a bid to reach out to the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, the party has chosen the Ambedkar International Centre as the venue of the meeting.”Shah is also said to have raised some concerns about an upper-caste backlash against the party, especially after the government’s decision to restore the stringent provisions of SC/ST Atrocities Act despite the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down important clauses of the law. The BJP president expressed the need to “do a balancing act” after the “Bharat bandh” called by the opposition on Monday. While it is unclear how that “balancing act” will pan out, Shah told the party’s office bearers that government programmes that benefit farmers have to be highlighted with greater vigour. He also said that the issue of the National Register of Citizens in Assam, for which the BJP has claimed credit, needs to be advertised as a great success of the Union government.