BJP to launch training programme to educate new members

Is an effort to prevent the kind of fate that political parties in India have suffered when expanding their base

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will tomorrow launch one of the most ambitious programmes in training party cadres ever undertaken in India. As many as 1.5 million party workers will be trained in party ideology in its four month long 'mahaprashikshan' or training programme. These will then reach out to the over 100 million members the party has enrolled as its members since November 2014.

The training programme is an effort by the BJP to prevent the kind of fate that political parties in India have suffered when expanding their base, like entry of people with little understanding of political processes or ideologies. BJP sources say 'lumpenization' was a fear expressed within party circles when it had launched its ambitious membership drive last year.

The BJP leadership hopes that the carefully devised training programme, that party President Amit Shah will inaugurate tomorrow, will address this need of telling its new members the "issues facing the nation" and the Sangh ideology. The BJP is also looking at millions of trained party workers at the grassroots level as a force multiplier to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) cadres that it relies upon for canvassing during election time.

The BJP will begin this training programme with a two day national workshop for 250 senior party leaders, including national office bearers of the party and five representatives from each state. Similar workshops for trainers will be conducted in each state. The party will first target its 11,000 mandals or units in small towns. The second stage will be the district level camps, followed by state level camps. Each camp will have a maximum of 150 people and for two to three days duration. All the camps in states will be organised simultaneously.

There will be separate sessions in each state to highlight the specific socio-political aspects of that particular state and also there will be session to update the active workers on the achievements of the central government and the BJP-ruled states where a number of path-breaking initiatives have been successfully implemented.

"No other party so far has taken up a task of this magnitude," party general secretary P Muralidhar Rao, who heads the team of experts preparing the content of the programme, said. The content features the history of Jan Sangh, BJP and RSS and its leaders like Deendayal Upadhyaya, Syama Prasad Mookherjee and others. Some of the basic tenets of party ideology like Antyodaya, that is the service of the poorest and integral humanism will be taught. The training programme is coincides with the centenary of Jan Sangh founder Deendayal Upadhyaya.