Telangana: BJP leaders told to spend time in villages, spread party ideology

Hyderabad: Hitherto it was hardcore RSS pracharaks who lived for months and even years in villages to spread their ideological message.

But now, the Bharatiya Janata Party, the political off-shoot of the Sangh Parivar, will be implementing a programme called Vistarak Yojana, ahead of the 2019 general election, wherein BJP leaders from mandal to state level will participate in taking the party’s ideology to the grassroots.

“This is the first time this is happening in the BJP. Our national president Amit Shah himself is on this mission. He will be away from his family for almost three months. We will also have to be away from family and our routine life. We have to dine, stay, everything, in a village for some time,” said AP BJYM president, S. Vishnuvardhan Reddy.

He said there are strict instructions that no participant should stay in a hotel; they must stay only in a villager’s house for at least 15 days, and should contact each and every voter within the ambit of a polling station during this time to explain the party’s ideology.

They will also collect data on caste composition of the village, any discrimination based on caste or religion, and how the various schemes launched by the Centre and State governments are being implemented in the area.

“We will send our feedback report directly to the state unit and to the central BJP office in Delhi. It is a voluntary programme given by our president. We are free to choose a particular village and booth and work for a minimum 15 days (for one to two booths) or for three months (covering a mandal) or one year (covering the whole district),” said K. Sridhar Reddy, TS BJP spokesperson.

The BJP members staying in the villages have to keep a book of minutes and enter their daily programme and should move always with the polling booth committee members. There are more than 46,000 polling booths in AP and nearly 30,000 in TS.

“This is to take the party to the villages and to the voters directly. An evaluation team in Delhi will supervise and guide us,” Mr Sridhar Reddy said