Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Nov 7: The prime minister Narendra Modi on Sunday hit out at the Congress reminding the people in the country that the grand old party merely revolved around a single family and had “never bothered about the problems he people faced.”
Speaking at a BJP national executive committee meeting to prepare for the coming elections in four states, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Goa and Manipur, Modi said the success of the BJP was rooted to its connects with the people. “The BJP is where it is today because it is not centred around any family but focuses on working for the welfare of the people,” he said. Modi further said the party’s values firmly lie in fulfilling promises and working with dedication for the masses.
“The party has reached this position because it has always been associated with the common man. BJP is not centred around any family. Its values are ‘sewa, sankalp, samarpan’ (service, resolution and commitment),” Modi told the meeting.
Union Minister Bhupender Yadav who briefed media persons on Modi’s address, said the prime minister also asked BJP workers to act as a “bridge of faith” between the party and the common man. “In his address, Prime Minister Modiji gave a mantra to the party workers that they should become a bridge of faith between the common man and the party, while referring to the party’s history as it has always been associated with the issues close to the common man of the country,” Yadav said.
Chief ministers and BJP presidents of four poll-bound states — Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Goa and Manipur — gave a presentation on upcoming Assembly elections at the meeting, Yadav told reporters. A similar presentation was given by BJP’s Punjab unit president, he said.
Referring to the welfare work done by BJP workers during the pandemic, Modi said the ruling party focused on serving the people. Talking about the presentations on poll-bound states, Modi expressed confidence that the party would “win the people’s trust as it has been moving forward by taking up issues close to the people.”
Modi also spoke about a new initiative of Kamal Pushpa launched on the Namo App. for paying tributes to party workers who devoted their entire life to the party. The BJP also set fresh targets for its expansion in the poll-bound states as well as those where it was still to emerge the victorious or as the closest alternative to the ruling party.
The party said it will set up booth committees in all 10,40,000 polling booths, deploy panna pramukhs (voter list in-charges) in them and will institutionalise Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Mann Ki Baat in every booth in the next six months.
Briefing the media about the inaugural session of the BJP’s national executive meeting being held for the first time post-Covid, Union Minister and senior party leader Dharmedra Pradhan said booth committees will be set up by December 25, page committees by April 6 next year, and institutionalisation of Mann Ki Baat at the booth level would be done by May 2022.
At the inaugural speech, party chief J P Nadda quoted his predecessor Amit Shah who had said the party’s peak had not yet come and that the BJP has to expand its footprint in Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha and Telangana.
BJP’s national executive meeting, being held after a period of two years and the first after a new executive was set up by current president Nadda, kept the upcoming Assembly polls front and centre of its agenda. Nadda set targets to strengthen the party’s organisational reach in poll-bound States and gave a pep talk to leaders on how the “best was yet to come”.
The upcoming Assembly polls and the effect of contemporary events on them was very much a part of Nadda’s speech, with the Minister reaching out to the Sikh community. He listed a number of measures the Modi government has taken for the community, including expediting action against 1984 riots accused, facilitating foreign grants to gurudwaras and keeping langars outside the purview of the Goods and Services Tax. Sikhs are members of the many farmers organisations currently protesting against the three contentious farm laws.
Pradhan said the executive hailed Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s effective leadership during the COVID pandemic, 100 crore vaccination drive and for providing free foodgrains to 80 crore poor people.
Nadda also lauded the party on its growth in West Bengal, where the party failed to win power in Assembly polls earlier this year. “If one looks at its growth in the State [West Benga] from the political science perspective, then there will be very few parallels of it in Indian political history,” Nadda said.
He added that the party would stand “like a rock” with party workers who were at the receiving end of political violence in West Bengal; “we will fight back democratically, the party has decided,” Pradhan quoted Nadda as saying.
According to Pradhan, Nadda said if one looks at the BJP’s vote share in the 2014 Assembly elections and the 2016 Assembly elections in West Bengal, and compared them with the 2019 Lok Sabha polls and 2021 Assembly polls, it shows substantial growth of the BJP in the State.
Citing the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, Pradhan said the executive lauded Modi for his foresight of enacting the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, which aimed at providing citizenship to minorities in some neighbouring countries, including Pakistan and Afghanistan.
A political resolution adopted by the executive the party specifically mentioned that “we shall ensure the party’s victory in upcoming Assembly elections.” The resolution condemned the Opposition’s “opportunistic” politics and its attempts to create fear during the pandemic. It also lauded the Modi government’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, not only in terms of the vaccination drive but also measures like providing foodgrains to a population of 80 crore under the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana.
The resolution said India was setting new standards of success globally under PM Modi but the opposition was solely acting out of “extreme hate” alleging that it was busy derailing the COVID-19 vaccination programme by making every effort and conspiracies and spreading disinformation. “Opposition parties practised opportunistic politics. They never hit the road during the pandemic and confined themselves to Twitter to spread suspicion,” Union Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said while briefing on the resolution.
The meeting was conducted in a hybrid mode with State leaders attending virtually including senior leaders like L.K. Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi. All members had to register digitally for the conference, and of the 346 members in the national executive, 342 were attending.