BJD starts 'master trainer' programme ahead of 2024 polls

With Lok Sabha and Odisha Assembly elections due next year, the ruling Biju Janata Dal (BJD) has started 'Master Trainer Programme' where at least 200 grassroots level party workers from each 147 Vidhan Sabha segment will be trained on skills to win elections.

The 37-day long training programme began here at 'Sankha Bhavan', the BJD headquarters here on Monday.

"The master trainers will take the party's message to each household in the state and development is our main agenda. The people will be told how the Naveen Patnaik transformed Odisha from a poor state to a developing region," BJD vice-president and convenor of the training programme Debi Prasad Mishra said.

Stating that the focus is on the achievement of the Patnaik government, Mishra said the state government's flagship programmes like Biju Swasthya Kalyan Yojana (BSKY) where women are given health assurance worth Rs 10 lakh, will be highlighted.

He said the BSKY, launched on August 15, 2018, is the most effective scheme of the government as 96 lakh of the state's 1.11 crore families are covered.

On the first day, 200 workers each from Cuttack, Chowdwar, Hinjili, Jagatsinghpur and Bhanjanagar assembly constituencies were trained. The training will continue for the next 36 days. Apart from Mishra, party’s top leaders will train the party workers.

While Mishra and others are imparting training on the political significance of a regional party in Odisha, experts from finance, industries and economics are roped in to sensitise the BJD workers on how the poor state procuring rice from other states for its survival transformed into a food grain surplus state. The trainees will tell the people how the transformations have taken place in different spheres starting from politics to economics and sports.

Mishra said when Patnaik took over the state in the aftermath of the super cyclone in 2000, Odisha was completely shattered and it was depending on overdrafts to give salaries to its employees. 'Under Patnaik's leadership, Odisha emerged as a role model in disaster management,' he said, adding that the workers are also being trained on the party's vision for 2036 when Odisha will celebrate its centenary.

During the 37-day-long programme, as many as 29,400 workers from the grassroots level will be imparted training on how to make people understand the contribution of Patnaik in transforming Odisha, Mishra said.

Meanwhile, opposition BJP MLA and party's chief whip in Assembly Mohan Majhi said the saffron party has also plans to set up control rooms by combining two Lok Sabha constituencies and a war room will also be set for 10 Lok Sabha mandalis.

The party will set up a call centre by taking two parliamentary sectors to know various issues and if schemes are reaching the ground. A direct interaction can be done with the workers and other people as well, he said.

Opposition Congress has also made an elaborate plan for its 'Ghare Ghare Congress, Ghare Ghare Haatha' campaign. The campaign will be launched on September 25 and will continue till October 15.

"The Congress people will reach the door steps of all the families in the state. We will tell people how both the BJD and BJP are misleading the people. Price rise, unemployment and crime against women will be our main agenda," said OPCC president, Sarat Pattanayak.