BJP coming out with coffee-table book chronicling 'largest political leadership training program'

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is likely to release a coffee-table book, which chronicles the "largest political leadership training programme undertaken anywhere in the world", and the BJP believes that the pictorial tome with a snapshot of its ideology, programmes and history will help familiarise the outside world with the saffron party.

Though cadre-training has been a regular exercise in the BJP, the party scaled it up like never before after its president Amit Shah took the helm in 2014 and launched a nation-wide training programme on the birth centenary of its ideologue Deendayal Upadhyaya in 2015.

According to the 208-page book put together by the party'straining cell and titled 'Training for a new India'- it captures a variety of programmes organised from mandal to district, state and national level by the BJP to train and reorient party workers on its ideology from 2015 onwards.

More than 12.90 lakh party workers have been trained since then, the book says.

"This programme is also the largest political leadership training programme undertaken anywhere in the world," it says.

BJP general secretary P Muralidhar Rao, who is in charge of the training programme, writes in the book that Shah had suggested its publication in 2018 so as to document the massive work that had taken place.

BJP functionary R Balashankar, who edited the book with his colleague Hemant Goswami, said the book will help the party to familiarise the outside world, from scholars and academicians to foreign delegates, with its ideology and history.

Modi is likely to release the book soon, party leaders said.