Getting into the election mode, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has decided to launch a "Gaon chalo abhiyan" (March to the villages) on September 25. All prominent leaders, including Deputy Prime Minister L K Advani and party president M Venkiah Naidu, will participate in the programme, aimed at strengthening the party's support base in rural areas.
With 10 states to go to polls in the next one year, the BJP is anxious to start its election campaign well in time, in areas where its outreach is not so extensive. According to BJP general secretary Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, the idea is to strengthen mass support in rural areas.
The programme would serve as a "bridge between the party, the government and the people and get the party and the government familiarised with the problems of the common man," he said.
Also Read
Significantly, it is not just potential chief ministerial candidates, like Vasundhara Raje Rajnath Singh and Gopinath Munde, who are cited in the list of people slated to march to the villages. Finance minister Jaswant Singh, foreign minister Yashwant Sinha, disinvestment minister Arun Shourie, civil aviation minister Shahnawaz Hussain and labour minister Sahib Singh Verma are to be part of this team as well.
If party sources are to be believed, these yatras are as much to educate the people about the BJP as to educate the leaders about the people and their problems. However, exactly what the BJP will say in its yatra is uncertain: while in the Congress-ruled states like Rajasthan, it is easy to build a case against the ruling party, in states where the BJP is in power, like Himachal Pradesh, it will have to be in self-defence mode.
Party sources say they are looking to the government to start announcing policy measures that can be held up as examples of all that the BJP has done for the rural India. A spate of populist announcements can therefore be expected soon.
Venkiah Naidu kicked this trend off with his statement last week that the government had promised to write off the interest on loans taken by farmers.