New Delhi: The desire to replicate its recent success story in the fast approaching provincial polls has once again brought the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its parent organisation Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) together.

BJP which became the first party in three decades to win an absolute majority in the May general elections will face its first acid test in the state legislative assembly elections getting due in five states in the last quarter of this year.

Winning the upcoming assembly polls has become all the more important for the BJP as four of these — Haryana, Maharashtra, Jharkhand and Jammu and Kashmir — are ruled by the opposition while Delhi which was under the Congress party rule for 15 years is under the President’s rule since February.

RSS, which had minutely planned BJP’s return to power at the centre after lapse of a decade including projecting the then Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi as the party’s prime ministerial candidate, does not want to leave anything to chance.

After Modi became the prime minister, the RSS hand-picked his close associate Amit Shah as the new BJP president to ensure proper coordination between the government and the party.

A team of senior RSS leaders are in town. Following their meeting with Shah and his two predecessors Rajnath Singh and Nitin Gadkari on Wednesday, RSS leaders were scheduled to meet Modi over dinner at his official bungalow on Thursday night.

The rival Congress party has been in power in Maharashtra for the past 15 years and in Haryana for 10 years. It was a junior partner in the Jammu and Kashmir until earlier this week and provides crucial support to an alliance government in Jharkhand.

The Congress party was in power in Delhi for 15 years until it lost the December assembly polls last year in which a hung assembly with BJP as the single largest party was elected.

According to BJP sources, Modi’s meeting with RSS had on its plate discussing strategy for the five poll-bound states and finalise the new team of central office bearers for BJP which has become imperative as several top office bearers of the party are part of Modi government now.

Shah, who was named the new BJP president a fortnight ago, has not yet named his team as he wants to carry along both RSS and his mentor Modi. Shah who at 49 years is the youngest ever BJP president is reportedly is keen on a complete overhaul of the party by inducting several new faces, with heavy dose of younger generation leaders.

Two RSS leaders who have recently shifted to the BJP including its national spokesperson Ram Madhav are slated to join Team Shah as new general secretaries. Besides some young generation leaders like Rajiv Pratap Rudy, Anurag Thakur and Varun Gandhi who could not be inducted into the Modi government may find prominent places in the party now.

Another crucial issue to be discussed at the last night meeting was whether to accelerate efforts to form the government in Delhi or go in for fresh polls. BJP is believed to have offers of support from six of the eight Congress party state lawmakers which would get it the majority, though both Modi and RSS are believed to favour fresh polls as backdoor entry to power may give the party a negative image of being power hungry.