The exercise is part of BJP’s two-pronged outreach programme, party president Amit Shah says it will be audited and reviewed.
New Delhi: The Bharatiya Janata Party has had seven affiliated morchas for many years, but they’ve often felt defunct. Now, in the build-up to next year’s Lok Sabha elections, these morchas will be put to use.
At a joint national executive of the morchas, party chief Amit Shah has given them a mammoth task – reach out to the 25 crore beneficiaries of various government schemes like the Ujjwala Yojana, Atal Pension Yojana, Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana – Gramin, Janani Suraksha Yojana, Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana, and so on.
This task, Shah said, would be audited and reviewed. To ensure the morchas have actually completed this task and connected with the beneficiaries, they have been asked to ensure that every person contacted will give a missed call on a number provided by the party. “On basis of these missed calls, the party will track which morcha has contacted how many beneficiaries,” a source said.
Shah also told the morchas to submit their suggestions and strategy for the Lok Sabha polls.
The BJP’s seven national morchas target the youth, OBCs, SCs, STs, women, farmers, and minorities.
Two-pronged strategy
The morchas are the first prong of the BJP’s two-pronged strategy to prepare itself for the Lok Sabha elections. The other is being headed by Shah himself – reaching out to every booth level worker and reviewing the progress made by the contact programme, which has been given the credit for the party’s good performance in state assembly polls.
“We will be the first line of the contact programme. A schedule is being made for every morcha as per the central scheme. The visits will have to be logged, and we’ll have to ensure that each beneficiary is contacted. This will automatically audit the scheme’s penetration as well,” said a member of one of the morchas who didn’t wish to be identified.
PM’s advice
The joint national executive of the morchas was divided into four sessions, with Shah addressing the first. The BJP’s general secretaries and the morchas’ national presidents addressed the second and third sessions respectively, while Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed the fourth and final session.
In his speech to the morchas, the PM advised workers to share the government’s achievements on social media, and to use the Narendra Modi app as well.