The Bharatiya Janata Party’s national executive meeting that begins in Bengaluru on Friday will set the agenda for an elaborate and sustained image management exercise with special focus on the Land Bill.
Party sources said the BJP-led Narendra Modi government has taken a hit due to the perception that the ordinance it promulgated in December 2014 and later brought in as a bill is anti-poor and pro-corporate. “There is a wide gap between the reality and the perception. We will chalk out the agenda for bridging this gap and go to the people with the facts,” a BJP leader said.
On Friday, the meeting will feature a special power point presentation on the land bill that paints the proposed legislation as one that sets the wrongs of the past right. Sources said that national executive members will be expected to go out to the people and propagate the party’s defence of the take on the legislation.
The BJP will follow-up its membership drive with a Jan Sampark Abhiyaan (mass contact programme) to drive home the message and convert those who have enlisted for membership into cadres who can communicate the government’s achievements.
The meeting will see two resolutions being tabled, party spokesperson Shahnawaz Hussain said. “One resolution will be on the Modi government’s foreign policy while another one will be an omnibus resolution on political and economic issues,” he added.
Party sources said that the foreign policy resolution is likely to be moved on Friday. The BJP is expected to laud Mr. Modi on his foreign policy outreach “from Bhutan to the U.S.” A party leader said that Mr. Modi was the only Indian Prime Minister to visit Nepal in 18 years and Sri Lanka in 28.
Meeting expected to hail Modi for fixing economy
“The UPA government had isolated India. It is the BJP government that has revived ties on equal terms whether it is with the rulers of Bhutan or the President of the United States.”
The tone and tenor of the resolution on economy and politics, to be taken up on Saturday, is also expected to be laudatory, congratulating the BJP government for ‘’fixing the economy and creating confidence among international investors,” the party leader, privy to the resolution’s contents said.
‘UPA not investor-friendly’
“The UPA regime drove away investors, hurt manufacturing and job creation. The Make in India programme aims at ending the slump. We will go to the people and tell them that under the Modi government, India is again a favoured investment destination and a fast growing economy,” he added.
