HYDERABAD: The BJP is trying something in Telangana that it has not tried anywhere during the National Executive Committee (NEC) meetings till now. It will be sending ‘Vistaaraks’ to each of the 119 Assembly constituencies on June 30 and July 1 to study the party’s position at the grassroots. These are no ordinary people who will visit the constituencies and stay there for two days before the commencement of the NEC on July 2. Prominent national leaders who could be MLAs, MPs, former ministers, ministers, and former chief ministers have been assigned the duty of being Vistaaraks, who will give a clear direction to the party’s cadre.
During these two days, the Vistaaraks will stay in the house of SC/ST worker, or with any local leader of the party. Right from their arrival in Hyderabad from around 10 am on June 30, they will head directly to their respective constituencies.They will have a series of meetings scheduled with booth-level committees, Shakti Kendra in-charges, mandal and district-level office-bearers, and members of various morchas including Mahila/Minority/SC/ST/Yuva/Kisan and other Morchas of the party of that particular constituency.They will study the strengths and weaknesses of the party, give directions to the party workers and leaders, and will submit a report to the state and national leadership of the party by the time the NEC meetings commence on July 2.
They will also work with Prabhaaris (in-charges) assigned to each constituency to mobilise people from booth level.The advantage of the effort is that the party’s leadership will get an unbiased assessment of the party’s ground-level situation in every constituency. The cadres will be upbeat looking at prominent faces coming to their streets, interacting with them, and staying in their constituency, which most of them may not have imagined could have been a possibility in any other national party.
Most importantly, it gives the Vistaaraks micro-level insights into the party’s affairs, and the party’s cadres also get to learn from the experience of these national leaders. According to BJP State secretary Dr S Prakash Reddy, there is an initiative called ‘Sansad Pravaas Yojna’ where Members of Parliament from BJP would be required to visit any constituency other than theirs from a different region, to study the party’s activities and position there, which is similar to the strategy being adopted here during the NEC meetings. That initiative is currently taking form, for which the Vistaaraks’ visits in Telangana constituencies are being seen as a pilot project.