After high-level BJP, RSS meets, party workers to hit the ground to counter Opposition narrative

Uttar Pradesh is the top focus among six of seven BJP-ruled states going to polls in 2022

Going in election mode nine months before elections in Uttar Pradesh, the BJP has decided to launch a massive counter-offensive against the Opposition's attack on its handling of Covid-19. The saffron party is set to involve its various cells and departments nationwide to counter the anti-government narrative.

The strategy was discussed at a meeting of party general secretaries and office bearers with BJP chief J P Nadda in the national capital, after which Union Minister Hardeep Puri addressed the media rebutting Congress's charges on the vaccination programme and the Central Vista project.

Also read — BJP seeks probe into 'profiteering' through vaccine sale by Punjab govt

After a threadbare discussion with general secretaries, the BJP's top leadership held a meeting with all departments and cells related to farmers, women, OBC and SC/ST. Later, Nadda went to brief Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the meetings.

The two-day huddle of BJP's top leaders began on Saturday when similar three-day confabulations of RSS top brass concluded in the national capital amid a buzz of plans for key organisational changes in Yogi Adityanath-ruled Uttar Pradesh, which has 80 Lok Sabha seats including Varanasi from where Prime Minister Narendra Modi is an MP. The BJP has officially ruled out rumours of a change of guard in Uttar Pradesh, which arose amid criticism of the state government's handling of the coronavirus crisis and the talks of elevation of Gujarat cadre IAS officer-turned-UP-MLC Arvind Sharma as Deputy Chief Minister.

Also read — The curious turn in UP politics with Yogi-Modi stand-off

While Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and Uttarakhand along with Manipur and Goa will go to the polls in less than nine months, the home state of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Amit Shah Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh, the home state BJP chief J P Nadda, will go polls in late next year. The BJP is in power in six of seven states barring Punjab and hence any outcome against the ruling party will be considered a referendum on the party for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. While the party is worried over the pandemic outcome in all states, the worry is bigger in the Hindi belt, where health infrastructure is in a mess.

In Punjab, the BJP has lost its ally Shiromani Akali Dal over farm laws issues, which has led to six-month-long protests by farmer bodies in Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and Punjab. The Congress has been concertedly building up a narrative of "policy paralysis" against the Modi government citing floating bodies of coronavirus victims in river Ganges, Covid-19 deaths in hospital and the lack of oxygen and medicines, an offensive which the BJP tried to counter by augmenting its Seva Hi Sangathan programme with the RSS chipping in with its volunteers to help people.

After the meeting, BJP fielded Union Minister Hardeep Singh Puri to counter the Congress campaign on vaccination and Central Vista matter.

"Congress opposed ongoing work on Central Vista Avenue & new Parliament but its govt began work on 160 luxurious houses for Rajasthan MLAs for ₹266 cr. Building bylaws flouted. 28 mtr tall building allowed as a “special case” against a 15 mtr rule. Special Case of Hypocrisy!," Puri said on Twitter.

The Union minister also raked up vaccine controversy in Congress-ruled Punjab, accusing it of 'profiteering' by selling Covid-19 vaccines to private hospitals and demanding resignations. Alleging that large doses of vaccines were found dumped in Rajasthan, he slammed the top Congress leadership for questioning the Modi government's vaccine policy.

On a day farmers protested outside the residences and offices of BJP MP and MLAs, an agitation which got the backing of Opposition parties, Puri slammed the political parties for "spreading misinformation."

Highlighting the work done by party workers during the Covid-19 pandemic, the BJP said that it served people in more than 1.53 lakh villages/bastis of 33 states on Seva Divas as part of Seva Hi Sangathan programme and reeled out figures of blood donation, distribution of masks and sanitisers, medicines and ration kits.

Sangh has meanwhile also asked its workers to get ready to work on the ground in view of projections about the third wave of Covid-19.