New BJP members to help build government’s pro-poor image

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has directed his Ministers to fan out across the country after the Budget session of Parliament ends on May 13 and counter the perception that the government is ‘anti-farmer’.

He wants them to popularise the government’s policies aimed at benefiting the poor, a Union Minister told The Hindu.

Mr. Modi wants the Bharatiya Janata Party to take the lead in propagating ‘Antodaya (serving the poorest)’ and ‘Integral Humanism’ as core values of both the party and the governments it leads at the Centre and States, during Bharatiya Jan Sangh founder Deen Dayal Upadhyaya’s centenary year, the Minister said.

“The newly enrolled 10.5 crore members will become the vehicles for spreading the message that the BJP governments, led by the government at the Centre, are committed to the welfare of the last man in the queue,” he added. “We have been asked to travel and educate these new members on how to spread this message.”

The new members will be trained during door-to-door mass contact programmes being launched by the party.

The BJP is desperate to shed the anti-poor and pro-corporate tags that have stuck due to the Opposition’s campaign countering the government’s claims. The Congress is upbeat after its vice-president Rahul Gandhi has begun leading the Opposition charge against the government in the ongoing session of Parliament. The merger of the Janata Dal (United), the Rashtriya Janata Dal and the Samajwadi Party into a singular political entity and a new general secretary for the CPI(M) in Sitaram Yechury have all proved to be confidence boosters for the Opposition parties.

At the BJP national executive meeting in Bangalore a month ago, the party brass spent two days sending out the message to its cadres that it was being “falsely targeted and maligned by the Opposition”.

Mr. Modi will launch three social security schemes relating to insurance and pension for the poor on May 9, a day after the Lok Sabha adjourns.

With the government completing one year in office later this month, a party leader admitted that “the mood is not as pro-BJP as it was one year ago”.

The party plans to counter that with its information campaign. All Ministries have been asked to make use of the radio and television channels of the public broadcaster Prasar Bharti to spread its message.

The Opposition is preparing a counter-offensive, charged up due to its successes in countering the government in the Rajya Sabha and outside Parliament on the land acquisition Bill and farmers’ distress.

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Source:Thehindu