Catch them young: BJP youth wing starts work on its blueprint for 2024, starts with ideological grounding of its functionaries

The programmes are being designed after high level meetings. To emphasise on the ideological training of its members, the new office-bearers of the youth wing –– all 22 of them –– have been asked to answer ten questions.

The questions, all framed and sent to the new office bearers by first-time MP, 29-year-old Tejasvi Surya who heads the party’s Yuva Morcha, include why they chose to enter politics, what drives them, and who according to them is the ideal youth wing karyakarta.

The office-bearers have been asked to write about the five important challenges the country and youth are facing and suggest possible solutions. They have been asked to enlist the BJP’s challenges and the projects the youth wing should take up to make it easier for the party.

Office-bearers have been asked to list out five projects they would personally like to initiate and implement, and write about its strengths and weaknesses. They have also been asked to put their minds into detailing the challenges faced by young party workers on the ground, and also write an essay on what they think is the most important change happening in India, and in the global context.

According to a functionary who did not want to identified, the responses had to be submitted by this week, after which the youth wing is likely to finalise its blueprint for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, with special focus on UP, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Manipur, Goa and Gujarat that go to polls next year.

Although the party has nine morchas including those dedicated to farmers, SC, ST, OBC, it is the Yuva Morcha and Mahila Morcha that are considered most important for political campaigns as they can carry out public outreach programmes cutting crossing caste and class limits.

The Yuva Morcha has played a prominent role in amplifying the party’s connection with people. Prominent leaders such as defence minister Rajnath Singh, culture minister G Kishan Reddy, BJP president Jagat Prakash Nadda, MP CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan, education minister Dharmendra Pradhan, I&B minister Anurag Thakur and MP Poonam Mahajan have served as national presidents of BJYM in the past.

Surya, who has been associated with the RSS and its youth wing, the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), before he contested the Lok Sabha elections in 2019 was among the last morcha heads to announce his national team. The reason was because every member had to pass through many rounds of questioning, mainly on ideology and his or her vision to improve the wing’s youth connect, people in know of the matter said.

Speaking at the state executive meeting of the morcha recently, Surya had said that under him, the morcha will focus on grooming “political leaders” and not “event managers”, and hence the focus will be on “envisaging a long-term vision for the party’s youth wing and implementing it.”

Morcha functionaries said the instruction now is not to “just go from one event to another, but meaningfully engage with society”.

“Young workers were just jumping from one activity to another, from a sapling planting ceremony to blood donation, then some symbolic celebration, which is why there is increased emphasis on ideological exercises now. We are telling our karyakartas that if we have to get neutral ones or those opposed to us, on our side, we have to have a lot of merit and confidence in our position,” a senior functionary said.

A meeting of PM Narendra Modi with Morcha heads last month helped the Yuva Morcha put in place new rules –– no member should be above 35 years and all have to spend a significant number of days a month in rural areas, taking the government’s vision to the people.

This is the first time the Morcha will have a department dedicated to policy making that will be headed by the party’s functionary from Gujarat, Varun

who has worked extensively on the government’s Ayushman Bharat. Author and Delhi university professor Abhinav Prakash, social activists Neha Joshi, Madhukeshwar Desai, popular faces in the Delhi unit of the party, Rohit Chahal, Vineet Tyagi and Tajinder Bagga are among the most prominent voices of the BJP from North Bengal. Raju Bista has also been accommodated in the new team.

An RSS-Vanvasi kalyan ashram activist from Chhattisgarh, Ravi Bhagat, who has worked for years in Maoist-den Bastar, ABVP functionary Shahzadi Syed who contested against four-time AIMIM MLA Akbaruddin Owaisi from Hyderabad in 2018 and has constantly urged Muslims to not be suspect of the BJP, SC faces such as Ram Satpute, an MLA from Maharashtra, Anup Saha, the lone BJP MLA from Birbhum in West Bengal known for its political violence and ST face of the party from Kerala, P Shyamraj have also been accommodated in the national team.

“We have given importance to members who have risen from the organisational route, but it is a good mix of grassroot mobilisers and cosmopolitan faces, apart from some who are self-made entrepreneurs themselves. Many of them come from really humble families which is inspiring in itself,” a party functionary said. Some states such as MP and Tamil Nadu have been left out in the list.