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Business News/ Politics / Policy/  BJP heeds RSS suggestion on training for MLAs
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BJP heeds RSS suggestion on training for MLAs

BJP to make MLAs aware of party affiliates, impact of social media and time management

BJP president Amit Shah. Prime Minister Narendra Modi & finance minister Arun Jaitley at national and state office bearers meeting. Photo: Hemant Mishra/MintPremium
BJP president Amit Shah. Prime Minister Narendra Modi & finance minister Arun Jaitley at national and state office bearers meeting. Photo: Hemant Mishra/Mint

New Delhi: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), acting on a suggestion by its parental organization, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), has conducted training sessions for newly elected BJP members of legislative assemblies (MLAs) in two states and is in the process of doing so in two more—all states where the party has formed a government in recent months.

The RSS wanted newly elected BJP MLAs to be told about the party’s core ideology, the importance of social media and how to nurture their constituencies.

In the last 10 months, the BJP has won assembly elections in Maharashtra, Haryana, Jharkhand, and Jammu and Kashmir (J&K).

Attending the training sessions is compulsory for all 282 new BJP MLAs in the four states. Chief ministers Raghubar Das (Jharkhand), Manohar Lal Khattar (Haryana), Devendra Fadnavis (Maharashtra) and deputy chief minister Nirmal Singh (J&K) were asked to be present at the training session.

“We have already completed the training programmes for Maharashtra and Haryana MLAs and the chief ministers were present for the training sessions. The states remaining are Jharkhand, Jammu and Kashmir, and Delhi," a BJP leader who is organizing the training, said on condition of anonymity.

The party lost miserably in the assembly elections in Delhi in February, winning only three of the 70 seats.

“The idea to organize such a training programme is to inform the MLAs about the core ideologies of the party, the history of the RSS, the Bharatiya Jan Sangh and the BJP, time management between constituency, family and party, impact of social media, and how to use social media to reach out to people, and how to use the MLALAD (Member of Legislative Assembly Local Area Development) fund for the betterment of people," said the BJP leader.

The initiative of training not only BJP MLAs, but also the party’s members of Parliament (MPs) is being led by Rambhau Mhalgi Prabodhini, a Mumbai-based think tank backed by the RSS.

The MLAs are being given detailed information about the welfare schemes of the central government so that they can spread awareness in their constituencies about these programmes.

The BJP leaders argue that the MLAs are representatives not only of the state party and government, but also of the BJP-led central government and that they must be knowledgable about central schemes in order to inform their constituencies about them.

The training programme also includes a detailed session on the ideology of the RSS, and information about the affiliated organizations that are backed by it.

“Since many people are joining the BJP from different backgrounds, they do not know about the RSS or its affiliated organizations. It is important to educate them about these organizations because these MLAs are in public life and will have to interact with these organizations," added the BJP leader.

A similar two-day training session was held for newly-elected MPs—164 from the Lok Sabha and 25 from the Rajya Sabha—in Surajkund, near Delhi, on 28 June last year.

Political analysts feel that the exercise was adopted by the BJP to structure the behaviour and interaction of all its members since people come into politics from different backgrounds. “Politics is a lonely profession, and it is important to teach public representatives about time and life management. Since there is no formal training to join politics, people from different backgrounds come into politics. This initiative of the BJP will structure their behaviour and interaction within the party," said Jai Mrug, a Mumbai-based political analyst.

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Published: 03 Apr 2015, 12:06 AM IST
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