BJP Looks to Refresh and Reboot its Narrative

The discussions of the new Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) central office bearers, state presidents and other functionaries that concluded on Sunday place the focus of the party is refreshing its winning narrative with a strong focus on reconnecting with the daily lives of people and consciously doing away with the frills and ostentation, often described as “VIP culture, that comes with being in office.

BJP president Nitin Nabin pointedly spoke about the need to be accessible and aware of public concerns in his intervention on Sunday when the meeting concluded. The message, according to those who attended the discussion, was not merely a routine iteration and seemed a reference to the trends such as “netas” – holding organizational and ministerial posts – travelling in large convoys.

Sewa theme in Modi@25 programmes

The programmes finalized by the BJP leaders to observe Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s 25 years in office as Gujarat chief minister and then PM reflect the theme of “sewa” or service in keeping with the central theme in the meeting. As expected, the need to stay connected with the youth with the Cockroach Janata Party (CJP) protests revealing vulnerabilities in the BJP’s armour were an important aspect of the deliberations with some participants suggesting that the “term Gen Z” might be misleading as the young voter is neither a homogenous block nor necessarily confined to a particular age bracket.

The move to relook and re-examine the party’s “narrative” building was very evident in the changes to the BJP social media team with Amit Malviya making way for Chhattisgarh-based Deepak Mhaskey and the other new faces that came in. Chief spokesperson and media in-charge Anil Baluni continues in his post but his team has changed too. The weekend meeting provided a platform to put together a team that will evaluate issues and BJP’s response on a continuous basis. A couple of senior leaders are likely to over see the process alongside the media teams.

Governance Blueprint

The party leadership has followed the cues provided by Modi who in his recent interactions with central ministers, officials and party functionaries has stressed the importance of being agile and receptive to feedback. The PM has asked ministers to up their social media game and set out a detailed list of “to dos” for senior government officials.

Cabinet Secretary T V Somanathan has in a letter to secretaries highlighted tasks like upskilling, early and continuous cross-department consultations, effective data management and the need to break silos, the last being a concern that has animated the Prime Minister almost from his first day in office. He outlined the importance of informal interaction and building team spirit among officers and suggested greater engagement between government departments, universities and young people to bring fresh perspectives in policymaking.

The spirit of innovation that the Prime Minister emphasised is being applied to the party as well along with a back-to-basics approach. A feeling has grown within the party that BJP’s articulation had in recent months got bogged down in a reactive mode with daily partisan battles on social media and this was preventing the party from speaking about its strengths and the significant achievements of the Modi government.