PUTRAJAYA, July 3 — Barisan Nasional (BN) is looking to reclaim its throne in Selangor in two years when federal polls are held with the same strategy it employed to win Sungai Besar last month, according to Umno Selangor chief Tan Sri Noh Omar.

Noh revealed that the KPI-based strategy was part of a special blueprint drawn up at a recent BN retreat, and that was used as an experiment in the just-concluded by-election.

"This is momentum, this is a new system. We have discussed with all BN components; we had a retreat and we came with a blueprint on how to win Selangor.

"We tried it out in Sungai Besar. If it (the blueprint) was successful there, it was to be our template (for the general election). If we lost, we would throw away the blueprint,” he explained during a recent interview.

"The blueprint was successful and can be used for the general election… and we will (use it),” he added.

According to the Umno leader, the strategy entailed focussing on BN’s strengths instead of the opposition’s weaknesses, and setting targets for each component to achieve.

Without elaborating, he explained that each party was given a KPI (key performance indicator) to deliver a specific number of votes for BN.

"In Sungai Besar our strategy was — we didn’t care about a three or five-cornered fights or who Pakatan (Harapan) fields. Forget about it, in BN we will concentrate on our party.

"We have our KPI, we say we want 17,000 votes from one party. We got this for the Chinese parties, from the Indians. We all have our own KPIs to achieve,” Noh Omar explained.

BN lost Selangor, the country’s wealthiest and most industrialised state, and its customary parliamentary supermajority to the opposition in the watershed 2008 general election.

The loose opposition alliance comprising DAP, PKR and PAS also defeated the ruling pact in three other states — Perak, Penang and Kedah — and Wilayah Persekutuan during the polls, while PAS retained power in Kelantan, a state it has held for over two decades.

Perak later fell back to BN’s hands following a year-long constitutional impasse in 2009 that was triggered by defections from PKR and the DAP.

In Election 2013, BN again lost its two-thirds parliamentary majority and failed to recapture Selangor and Penang, although it returned to power in Kedah and retained Perak.

According to Noh, who was last week reappointed to Cabinet, BN’s political fortunes may change in the next general election expected by 2018.

The new housing, urban wellbeing and local government minister said he intends to put his appointment to good use, and deliver Selangor to BN.

"Now that I am in the Cabinet, I can raise the concerns of Selangor people straight to all the ministers.

"I can meet every week with the prime minister and other ministers. If there is a problem, I can directly solve it together with the ministers instead of state government. This an advantage,” Noh Omar explained.

"Obviously, whether I’m a minister or not, my priority being here is to win back Selangor,” he added.

Najib announced a Cabinet reshuffle last week that included the appointment of two new federal ministers and four deputy ministers.

The Cabinet reshuffle came shortly after BN’s comfortable wins at both the Sarawak state elections as well as the Sungai Besar and Kuala Kangsar by-elections.