M F AHMAD
Daltonganj, June 28: It’s nearly two days more left when the BJP in Jharkhand will be winding up its month-long ‘Maha Jan Sampark Abhiyan’ on June 30 launched with great political enthusiasm and fervour.
Political analysts said the BJP has refreshed its political fibre in the hard bed of the politics in Palamu where it has four MLAs out of the five and for two consecutive terms BJP has its MP V D Ram.
The task before the BJP here is not to win but to retain its seats both for the Lok Sabha and the Vidhan Sabha. The battle to retain a seat is far more crucial than to win as retention of seats faces an anti-incumbency factor.
The BJP team in the Palamu Lok Sabha constituency comprising the whole of the Garhwa district having two assembly seats and Palamu’s four assembly seats out of the total of five assembly seats under the stewardship of its two-term MP Vishnu Dayal Ram made the Maha Jan Sampark Abhiyan an optical reality and not any optical illusion as there went not a single day here in this month-long venturing without the BJP being in news in the media.
The BJP tapped social media, social media influencers, VIPs, seniors and nearly overlooked BJP workers, traders and businessmen, Vikas Tirth, tiffin lunch and again lunch in a posh hotel, an assemblage of beneficiaries, observance of Balidan Diwas in honour of Dr Shyama Prasad Mukherjee etc. A public meeting in Daltonganj, when mercury was hovering between 44 to 44.8 degrees Celsius, showed the grit of the BJP for its electoral fight.
The month-long Abhiyan did not see any face of the Muslims in the BJP or if it is claimed to be anywhere then also it remained as inconspicuous as ever. The BJP has a Morcha called Alp Sankheyak Morcha.
Again, the BJP here has a long array of women cadres like Rupa Singh, Poonam Chandravanshi, Citu Gupta and others but their political capabilities are yet to be fully utilised. These women leaders can bring a dramatic gain for the party but they are made to stand alone and aloof politically, said some BJP leaders.
The Congress, the JMM, the CPI etc here are watching the BJP show terming it as nowhere even remotely on the horizon to Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra but its outreach can’t be dismissed.
However, the opposition parties admit it in private conversation that there is no match to the BJP’s political manoeuvring which keeps burning issues like that of unemployment, lack of industry, price rise, poor bank lending, severe communal divide and hatred, people going down poverty line, curtailment to press freedom, intrusion of China, withdrawal of 2000 denomination banknotes etc under the carpet.
The BJP even tried to monopolize International Yoga Day as one of its many programmes in its month-long Maha Jan Sampark Abhiyan where mats laid out of the Yoga were skilfully turned into a BJP mat for the election.
Political observers say the way the BJP is holding programme after programme gives a heartbreak to the opposition parties to think if the Lok Sabha is going to be held months ahead of its schedule.
“The BJP is an all-weather party as climate change does not affect this party any more and where it faces electoral change like this Karnataka election, the BJP becomes more teethful,” said many in the BJP here.
