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    BJP’S national stock-taking exercise : State units list digital, migrant outreach during lockdown

    Synopsis

    Lauding their work, Modi said that the BJP as an organisation is not meant to only win elections but do ‘sewa’ to people. Party units in Assam, UP, Bihar, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Delhi attended this stock-taking, which was conducted by a ‘Vishal Jansabha’ and was attended by all senior party leaders.

    migrant-bcl
    The UP and Bihar teams focussed on the government’s efforts to bring back migrants.
    New Delhi: At the BJP’s national stock-taking meeting held by PM Narendra Modi on Saturday, the state BJP units flaunted the work they had done during the lockdown. Setting up new digital communication units such as Samvad Setu, mobilising donations for PM-CARES, reaching out to migrant workers and helping the families of deceased Covid-19 patients with the last rites were some of them.

    Lauding their work, Modi said that the BJP as an organisation is not meant to only win elections but do ‘sewa’ to people. Party units in Assam, UP, Bihar, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Delhi attended this stock-taking, which was conducted by a ‘Vishal Jansabha’ and was attended by all senior party leaders.

    While the Karnataka, UP and Assam units claimed that their efforts supplemented the work of the state governments, Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Delhi units said they helped with Covid-19 screening in places like Dharavi, holding protests on the “failure and discrimination” of state governments in relief work, apart from making masks, organising blood donation camps, and strengthening the party’s digital outreach.

    All units showed pictures as proof of how many “virtual meetings” they held, the people they mobilised to support PM’s call for lighting lamps, and the people they reached out to increase support for PM-CARES. Modi has asked for these works to be published as booklets and distributed at the mandal level.

    The UP and Bihar teams focussed on the government’s efforts to bring back migrants. Its state unit claimed to have connected with 71,621 party workers virtually to mobilise them for “corona seva” which included setting up food camps in Patna, Motihari, Darbhanga, Betiya and one in Ujiarpur called ‘Modi Tiffin Centre’.

    The Bihar unit said it has distributed over two lakh food kits in 45 districts and reached out to more than 11 lakh people with donation requests for PM-CARES. “The biggest problem was how to take the central leadership’s message to party workers at the village level. For the first time we made extensive use of digital communication tools such as audio bridge and video conferencing,” Bihar BJP president Sanjay Jaiswal told ET.

    The unit said to keep the people in quarantine centres motivated, cultural programmes were put together by the party, in association with Patanjali Yog Peeth and Sewa Bharati that is affiliated to the RSS. The party had a word of praise for female workers of Bhagalpur, Saharsa and Muzaffarpur for making thousands of masks in a limited time and also helping the party in their distribution.

    The UP BJP unit said it distributed over 4 crore food packets and 92 lakh masks, had made over 2 crore people install Arogya Setu App and held 674 virtual meetings. “The sight of people walking on the roads….we decided that our party workers will do everything possible to help them,” Swatantra Dev Singh UP BJP president told ET.

    The Maharashtra and Rajasthan BJP units claimed to have got 4.12 lakh and 2 lakh people to donate to PM-CARES respectively. The Rajasthan BJP unit said it conducted over 40 virtual meetings, ran a signature campaign to honour medical professionals, organised protests in 40 districts against Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi's announcement to ferry buses to UP to arrange for migrants’ return. To "keep workers motivated during the lockdown," the unit said it conducted special webinars on the contribution of BJP leaders Sunder Singh Bhandari and Deen Dayal Upadhyay to the party.

    “The first thing we did was to start a helpline on the very first day of the lockdown. The helpline received 50,000 calls and we were able to dispose of 37,000 requests successfully,” Satish Poonia, Rajasthan BJP president told ET. They also helped families with the last rites of the victims.

    The Karnataka BJP unit that claimed to have conducted over 1,000 virtual conferences, for 287 hours, involving over 26,000 BJP karyakartas, had curated responses of former PM HD Devegowda, and spiritual leaders such as Nirmalanandanatha and Siddhalinga Swamiji congratulating the PM's efforts to get everyone to thank Covid-19 warriors. The unit specifically has a section of feedback from people in the State on the government's Covid-19 efforts, one of which read, "If Modiji were not there, we would have died like insects."

    Some States also said because their district and mandal level organisations were still being formed, the seva abhiyan took a little more time to take off. Statistics of use of Arogya Setu, efforts made to mobilise donations for PM-CARES could have even been better, two of them said. Units in Karnataka, Delhi, Rajasthan and Maharashtra also had details on the efforts of party units in making sure gaushalas did not run out of cattle feed or birds and monkeys did not go without food.

    Assam State unit claimed to have hosted 150 virtual meetings with its workers during the lockdown, and said it was among the first to implement the home ministry's order of appointing a nodal officer to coordinate with the Centre and States for those who are stranded from the State.

    The Delhi unit said it has distributed over 1 crore food packets, and 1,617 of its karyakartas were put specifically in the service of senior citizens who lived alone in the city. It claimed to have mobilised over ten lakh people to donate to PM-CARES and held over 170 virtual meetings, apart from specifically "assisting a group of 1,000 Gujarati tourists who were stuck in Delhi and were not able to go back, and providing monthly aid to the community of snake charmers."


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