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A Report by Sunil Deodhar
Andhra Pradesh is suffering from the corrupt YSRCP Government. Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy is failing on all fronts. Compared to other states, BJP as an organisation is not that strong at the grassroots level in Andhra Pradesh. Amidst a situation like this, to strengthen the organisation and to increase the organisation’s base among the masses, an initiative that was recently undertaken by BJP Andhra Pradesh state unit was successful to a great extent. Vide this article, I intend to share the information regarding the said initiative. When BJP Joint National General Secretary (Organisation) Shiv Prakash, State Incharge V. Muraleedharan, State President Somu Veerraju, State General Secretary (Organisation) Madhukar and other prominent leaders discussed about the agitation to be carried out against CM Jagan Mohan Reddy’s corruption, a unique initiative came forth and it was given the title “Praja Poru Street Corner Meetings”. This Telugu word “Praja Poru” means “People’s fight” in Telugu.
In the state of Andhra Pradesh, there are approximately 45000 polling booths and by brining 4 or 5 polling booths under the purview of each Shakti Kendra, a total of 10000 Shakti Kendras have been formed in the entire state. Out of these 10000 Shakti Kendras, in approximately 8000 Shakti Kendras, at least one karyakarta is available and he/she has been appointed as Shakti Kendra Pramukh.
BJP being an opposition party in the state, to unite the people against Jagan Mohan Reddy government, we planned to organise street corner meetings at Shakti Kendra places and set a target that in a span of one month, we will conduct 5000 street corner meetings.
We decided to spread the information about the pathbreaking work being done by Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi Ji for India’s security, all round development, & welfare of poor & deprived people
In all these street corner meetings, we decided to spread the information about the pathbreaking work being done by Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi for India’s security, all round development, & welfare of poor & deprived people along with strengthening our nation’s integrity.
Furthermore, we also decided to make people of Andhra Pradesh aware of Jagan Mohan Reddy’s failed governance. To make this program a grand success, four different committees were constituted. One committee was constituted to monitor the on-ground execution of these street corner meetings, one committee which is called the Drafting Committee was constituted. Said committee’s work was to draft a document listing out PM Modi Ji’s pro-people schemes and another document listing out CM Jagan’s failures. In few places, at the assembly constituency level, such documents were also prepared listing out the local issues.
Another committee was constituted to take care of publicity and materials, through which ample care was taken to supply adequate amount of literature, party flags, caps, posters, banners, stickers, etc. The biggest issue in organising Praja Poru Yatra was speakers. If 5000 meetings were planned to be conducted in a span of one month, then it was necessary to have at least appropriate 166 meetings every day.
This led to a requirement of many speakers to address the gatherings.
Therefore, the state unit organized a speaker training workshop and a subject training facility was also organised in the same. As the program started, interest of the people increased day-by-day and Praja Poru meetings became successful and the enthusiasm of party workers also increased. And while we have envisioned 5000 meetings, this figure actually reached more than 6700 meetings at the end of the said one month. Overall, this program was very successful. Some Benefits of Praja Poru meetings:
1. BJP as an organisation became active from state level to booth level and an atmosphere of enthusiasm was created among the people of Andhra Pradesh.
2. On this pretext, booth committees were formed at many places where the party did not exist.
3. A large number of workers and members of the opposition parties, who were angry with their respective parties, came to Bharatiya Janata Party. With this, joining programs were completed at the micro level.
4. Media in Andhra Pradesh is our opponent. Almost all Media houses does the work of spreading lies about us and there is very little activity in social media. But after the success of Praja Poru sabhas, through social media, the idea of BJP, Modi government’s great work came to known to more people in the State. Even mainstream TV channels and newspapers were compelled to take cognisance of this ‘Successful Abhiyan’ of Andhra Pradesh BJP during the tenure of the campaign.
5. This campaign contributed immensely in building the leadership of Bharatiya Janata Party among the masses at the grassroots level, creating party workers across all sections of our society, and in setting the narrative that BJP is an alternative to the corrupt Jagan Mohan Reddy government.
Due to this program of ours, many MLAs and leaders of YSRCP were in tension and they tried their best to stop our program.
However, I thank from the bottom of my heart to those karyakartas who did hard work, spent their time, energy & efforts on the issues and contributed in a huge scale to make our program a grand success.
(The writer is BJP, National Secretary and Co-Incharge of Andhra Pradesh)