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BJP starts policy units eyeing 2024 Lok Sabha polls

Each unit is currently being built, and will have as many as 400 members each eventually
Last Updated 05 July 2022, 19:28 IST

With an eye on the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, the Bharatiya Janata Party is headed the policy way. The party has recently started policy units across seven of its nine morchas, whose mandate is to provide policy prescriptions to the government across a range of fields.

The policy divisions have been started in Mahila Morcha, ST Morcha, OBC Morcha, Yuva Morcha, Minority Morcha, SC Morcha, and Kisan Morcha. The units are headed by Karuna Gopal, Rajya Sabha MP Sumer Singh Solanki, Pankaj Chowdhary, Varun Jhaveri, Zafreen Mehjabin, Dr Rahul Chimurkar, and Neeraj Sehrawat respectively.

While Gopal, an IT expert, is president of Foundation for Futuristic Cities who has also worked with the Manmohan Singh government on policy, Jhaveri is a graduate from IIM Ahmedabad, and Chirmurkar teaches politics at Delhi University.

Work on these units have been going on in the eight-nine months, the unit in the Mahila Morcha has been holding deliberations and sending inputs to ministries. The Yuva Morcha wing has started training its cadre on governance.

Each unit is currently being built, and will have as many as 400 members each eventually. The units will have in-charges across all the states and Union Territories, and in-charges can build teams of 10-12 people. For instance, the Mahila unit in Uttar Pradesh already has 100 district incharges.

The women research wing, which holds significance for the party, was initiated after a suggestion from the prime minister, party leaders said, who wanted the Mahila wing to provide these inputs. Gender-based policy inputs to ministries would earlier come from the PM’s office.

One of the suggestions from the wing to the health ministry is to provide HPV vaccines to women. The wing is trying to partner with institutes for research work, and with industry bodies like NASSCOM for inputs to study why women leave jobs over the years. The wing is also working with economist Bibek Debroy for advice on economic matters.
“Women and economic development, women and climate change, financial inclusion of women, these are some of the areas where we are working on. Nutrition, too, is another significant area,” Gopal told DH.

The BJP has had a policy and research division headed by Vinay Sahasrabuddhe, and state in-charges as well. The RSS-affiliated Rambhau Mhalgi Prabodhini (RMP) has also helped in policy suggestions to the party. Yet, these new units are sectorally divided to encourage suggestions to various ministries.

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(Published 05 July 2022, 19:28 IST)

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