New Delhi: The Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) members of Parliament have been given a new task — to invite the beneficiaries of Ayushman Bharat for tea and snacks on Diwali and make their experiences public through social media and the NaMo app.
BJP parliamentary secretary Balasubrahmanyam Kamarsu wrote to the MPs, asking them to organise meetings with beneficiaries of Ayushman Bharat or Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana, a medical insurance scheme the Narendra Modi government launched in September 2018.
Party president and Union Home Minister Amit Shah too has written to all MPs in this regard.
In the last few months, BJP MPs have been on their toes due to activities mandated by the party brass — such as organising awareness programmes on the scrapping of Article 370, ‘Seva Saptah’ (service week) during PM Modi’s birthday week, and the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi.
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Article 370 & Seva Saptah
After the party’s spectacular performance in the Lok Sabha elections in April-May, the BJP MPs’ first major task was to organise meetings after the government scrapped Article 370, which gave special status to Jammu and Kashmir, and bifurcated the state into the union territories of J&K and Ladakh. The MPs were asked to meet the public and opinion-makers, as well as do press conferences to justify the decision, and submit proof of these meetings to the high command, said a BJP functionary, who did not wish to be named.
The next month, the party announced that the week of PM Modi’s birthday (17 September) would be observed as Seva Saptah, in which the MPs would have to hold cleanliness and plantation drives as well as blood donation camps, among other things. On this too, they were asked to submit a detailed report, the functionary said, with many posting their activities on social media.
“BJP is a cadre-based party and it is the work done by the MPs that allows us to reach out to the masses. One can easily see that everyone participates in the activities that are assigned to BJP leaders, MPs, or even workers,” a senior party leader told ThePrint.
“During Seva Saptah, Amit Shah himself carried out a cleanliness drive at AIIMS in Delhi. So, everyone is equal. Which is why whatever task is assigned, everyone follows it.”
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Gandhi’s 150th birth anniversary & economic turnaround
Soon after Seva Saptah, the leaders were assigned another responsibility, as the BJP started a ‘Sankalp Yatra’ and outreach programmes to mark the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi. A number of padyatras have already been organised this month.
Top leaders, including MPs, chief ministers and state units have also been asked to spread the word on the “economic turnaround” undertaken by the second Modi government by holding press conferences.
According to a senior party functionary, Shah has asked workers to spread more information about the work done by the government to improve the current economic situation. “This was conveyed to the state units during Amit Shah’s meeting with all the MPs Saturday through a video-conference facility,” the functionary said.
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