Prime Minister Narendra Modi.With the government battling the perception that it is pro-rich and pro-corporate, the BJP has decided to aggressively counter “misinformation” by bridging the divide between the government and the people, and spreading the message that the poor are at the centre of all reformist policies.
At the two-day BJP national executive, the message from both Prime Minister Narendra Modi and party chief Amit Shah was clear: the BJP should act as a bridge between the government and the people, the government should ensure its flagship programmes such as Swachh Bharat benefit the poor, and the party should reach out to its cadre through a ‘Maha Sampark Abhiyaan’ to convert political activities into a social movement. To drive home the message, the stage had the slogan, ‘Antyodaya hamara sankalp’, as the background.
The party national executive fully endorsed all decisions taken by the government in its first 10 months, but chose to dwell on two issues — the government’s push to the land acquisition bill and the party’s decision to join hands with the PDP in Jammu and Kashmir.
Battling not just Opposition criticism but even differing opinions within the party over the land acquisition bill, BJP leaders Nitin Gadkari and Arun Jaitley presented a forceful argument on how the previous government’s 2013 legislation was actually anti-farmer. “It prevents rural irrigation, rural roads, housing for all in rural India and rural electrification,” Jaitley said, addressing the media after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s concluding address. The amendments to the bill have now changed this, he added. A national executive member said no further questions were raised after the intervention by the two leaders.
On J&K, party general secretary Ram Madhav made a detailed presentation explaining the political context and the rationale behind the party’s decision to ally with the PDP. “The mandate itself decided the possible course of coalition. Conventional positions would not have worked,” Jaitley said, adding that the decision was also based on a popular feeling in the state to correct the governance deficit and focus on development.
To dismantle the Opposition campaign that the government was pro-rich, Modi himself illustrated several examples of the Congress “spreading misinformation”. The Congress government kept gas prices high at $8.4 per mmbtu, while they dropped to $5 under BJP government, he said. Coal blocks were allocated free to the wealthy earlier, now the wealthy have to pay, he added. Similarly, wealth tax has been substituted by a tax on the super rich, Modi told the gathering.
The party also declared that it had a major role in communicating the government’s programmes to the people and receiving feedback from them. “The focus (of the national executive) was on active party, active membership, active participation till the grassroot level and the party backing the government in its programmes and policy formation,” said Jaitley.
Party general secretary P Muralidhar Rao also said the focus was on expanding the party. continued…
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