Promises to keep
Promises matter in elections because voters lack rationality. As election history shows, freebies do get votes. Hitherto, it was a time tested method of electoral success for a desperate opposition.
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Anupam Hazra has been given the task to create an intellectual force of the party in West Bengal ahead of the Assembly Elections next year.
The decision to have a group of intellectuals and academics advocating for BJP was taken during Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s visit to West Bengal.
Reportedly, Shah and BJP’s All India General Secretary BL Santosh have directed Hazra to engage with intellectuals who would extend their support to the saffron party. However, they would not be required to join the party or attend meetings and rallies.
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Bengali daily Sangbad Pratidin quoted Hazra as saying, “We have to promote BJP by apolitically creating a political awareness. I don’t want to bring intellectuals and academics by handing them our party falg. We have to get them in a different manner.
“Without pointing fingers at the oppositions, they will have to highlight the success of Modi ji and his welfare schemes. There’s a lack of promotion about Modi ji’s policies in villages and other remote regions. We’ll have to do that through artists.”
The former Bolpur MP has also planned to get the Baul singers into his team of intellectuals, academics and artists. “I’ve asked few of my friends, who did PhD in Shantiniketan, to write songs in support of Modi ji. Bauls will perform the songs in events, concerts, local and express trains,” the professor at Biswa Bharati University said.
Hazra has already informed about his vision to BL Santosh. “He has asked me to visit Delhi after finalising everything,” said the young BJP leader.
Reportedly, the intellectual force of BJP will be different from the usual groups of the Left and Trinamool Congress in West Bengal. The Hindutva brigade’s team will be “apolitical” and “indirect”, while building the political narrative in support of Narendra Modi.
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