May 30 is a red letter day for the ruling BJP as it will mark the completion of one year of the Narendra Modi-led government's second term in power.
The first year of the second term is particularly significant for the party, as it has honoured three top promises made in its manifesto during this period -- abrogation of Article 370, the Triple Talaq Act and delivering the Ram Janmabhoomi promise.
While the party had grand plans to mark the special occasion, the Covid-19 outbreak has forced it to tweak them. BJP President J.P. Nadda has taken a three-pronged approach to celebrate the first anniversary with personal, digital and virtual outreach programmers.
Personal Outreach
The BJP plans to take a copy of a letter written by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to as many as 10 crore households across India. In the letter, Modi will seek a pledge for "Aatma Nirbhar Bharat" besides sharing some tips on battling the Covid-19 pandemic.
However, given the social distancing norms in place, BJP general secretary Arun Singh said that each group distributing the letter will comprise two cadres only, and they will stay clear from the containment zones and the quarantine centres.
BJP has a plethora of morchas like farmers, women and so on, and Nadda has instructed all the morchas to distribute face covers and sanitises to all their members.
The party will also hold press conferences at 150 media centers across India where the senior party leadership will advertise not just the "achievements" of the last one year, but also India's "successful ability" to deal with the Covid-19 outbreak. Moreover, with the Prime Minister going big on 'Swadeshi', each and every BJP member will be made to take a pledge to support indigenous products.
Digital Outreach
The party has also asked all its booth level members to create WhatsApp groups with immediate effect where Modi government's 'achievements' and details of Nadda's interaction, among other things, will be shared. Three days have been designated -- May 27, 28 and 29 -- to create thousands of WhatsApp groups across the length and breadth of India on a war footing.
BJP's national mouthpiece, "Kamal Sandesh", will issue online bulletins in the coming days. The cadres as well as leadership have been asked to inform the support base about the same so that the information penetration is maximised.
While the party is going overboard with its outreach, it is mindful that the primary concern of all Indians is about the pandemic right now. Hence, the BJP has decided to issue a short video where India's tackling of the pandemic will be shown as a success story. All state units have been asked to translate and dub the video in local languages.
Ever since the lockdown, Nadda has been regularly video conferencing with party general secretaries and state leaderships. One video of that will also be made to portray a picture of how "reachable" the BJP President is.
Virtual Rallies, 1K Video Conferences
The saffron camp may not be in a position to hold grand rallies, but it is up for virtual rallies. "At least one big rally in smaller states and two rallies in bigger states will be organised by the party which will attended by more than 750 people," said a statement by the BJP. These virtual rallies will be held through video conferencing.
The BJP has planned at least 1,000 video conferences to be addressed by the national and state leadership. Each interaction will be of one hour duration, out of which 40 minutes will be dedicated for the speech of the guest, while 20 minutes will be kept for question and answer.
Nadda has also tasked every morcha to addresses up to 500 congregations through video conferencing in the next seven days. They have been asked to highlight the "promises delivered" by the Modi-led BJP government. The BJP has also asked its leadership to communicate to people the scale of the government's economic package in layman's language.
The BJP President has urged the leaders and party workers to strictly maintain social distancing norms while carrying out all these plans and proposals
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