BJP hopes to better equip them to talk about central and state governments’ achievements across sectors in the run-up to 2019 general and assembly polls.
Mumbai: With an eye on the 2019 Lok Sabha and state assembly polls, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Maharashtra has already swung into election preparation mode. It has launched a series of workshops titled ‘Expert Explains — understanding new India’ to hone the skills of its spokespersons, to better equip them to talk about the achievements of the BJP-led government across sectors.
As part of the programme, the BJP hopes to get at least one eminent speaker from a different sector every month to hold an extensive session with its 16 spokespersons in Maharashtra over the next one year. The ‘new India’ refers to developments in the country post May 2014, when Narendra Modi became Prime Minister.
Keshav Upadhyay, the BJP’s media cell in-charge for Maharashtra, said: “The aim is to ensure that all our spokespersons are well-versed with the state of affairs across sectors, achievements under the BJP government, issues in those sectors and possible solutions being deployed by the government.
“This will enable them to make more informed statements while campaigning among people and to the media, and ensure more effective participation in public debates across sectors.”
The first such workshop was addressed Thursday by Prof. Ramesh Chand, member of the NITI Aayog, at Sahyadri, the state government’s official guesthouse in south Mumbai. He spoke about innovations and reforms in agriculture and the farm economy. About 13 BJP spokespersons were present.
“Closer to the budget, we will try to rope in an expert from finance, and in the coming months we will look at sectors such as defence, urban development and so on,” Upadhyay said.
An important election for the BJP
Relations between the Shiv Sena and the BJP, which currently run the Maharashtra government together, have increasingly soured, so the two parties are likely to go solo in next year’s elections.
Meanwhile, the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), which snapped their alliance before the 2014 state polls, are beginning to show signs of reconciliation.
In this context, the 2019 election will be significant for the BJP, not only retain its hold over Maharashtra, but also establish power on its own strength and tower over the Shiv Sena, which considers the state to be its turf.
Last year, the Maharashtra BJP had launched a ‘mantri-karyakarta samvad’ (minister-worker dialogue), arranging for union and state ministers to directly speak with party workers about activities in their respective portfolios.
The ‘Expert Explains’ series to train spokespersons comes soon after Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, in a special party conclave, told BJP workers to get into election mode within the next six months.
Meanwhile, the BJP has also started mobilising its booth-level teams.
“We have 1,000-1,400 voters in every polling booth, and every page has about 400-500 names. We are planning teams for each booth, a booth pramukh (booth leader), and even panna pramukh (page leaders) for every page of the list, to cover all voters,” a BJP leader said.
If the BJP wishes to return to power in the state, it cannot afford to fight the election separately from the Shiv Sena. Especially if the Congress and NCP contest jointly. There will also be two sets of incumbency to contend with next year.