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Ahead of 2022 UP polls, BJP raising 2 lakh village health volunteers’ force
The exercise would help the BJP connect better with the villages which had witnessed widespread grief during the second wave of Covid-19 in April and May, though the health volunteers denied that the initiative had a political reason.
LUCKNOW: Mayank Gupta, 40, a medicine shop owner from Azamgarh has a new designation – swasthya swayamsevak (health volunteer).
Armed with a kit, some lessons from doctors on the basic dos and don’ts to adopt to avoid Covid-19 spread, a booklet and some essentials like pulse oximeter, medicines and thermometer, he is part of the nearly 2 lakh health volunteers the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) plans to deploy in the state’s countryside.
“All these preparations are being made ahead of the much-talked about third wave. As a responsible party,, we have taken this unique initiative to help the people, should the third wave strike,” said Gupta, who is also the BJP’s treasurer in the district.
At the day-long training session on Tuesday, the party’s national general secretary CT Ravi, UP BJP chief Swatantra Dev and state general secretary (organisation) Sunil Bansal told the nearly 460 mostly young volunteers who had come to Lucknow that they would now train more volunteers at the district level.
While the exercise, months ahead of the 2022 UP polls, would obviously help the BJP connect better with the villages which had witnessed widespread grief during the second Covid--19 wave in April and May, the health volunteers denied that the initiative had a political reason.
“Our leaders made it clear that though the BJP had taken up the initiative to post health volunteers in villages, yet the exercise to train volunteers would not remain confined to the party. In fact, we would be willing to train other social organizations irrespective of the party affiliation,” said Indra Nigam, 34, an accountant and a BJP volunteer from Gorakhpur who took the lessons. He works with BJP’s IT team in the district.
Some health volunteers, however, admitted that along with raising awareness about Covid safeguards, they would also popularise the various efforts made by the Narendra Modi government at the centre and the Yogi Adityanath government in UP, to help the poor through various schemes and initiatives.
“We are BJP workers from districts so we will also talk about the party and government initiatives “ a health volunteer said.
The idea of health volunteers to be posted in villages was first mooted by BJP general secretary (organization) BL Santhosh during his visit to the state capital in June.
Back then, the move to deploy health volunteers was announced immediately after the extensive devastation caused during the second Coovid wave in April.
The BJP also invited Dr Suryakant from King George’s Medical University’s (KGMU) department of pulmonary medicine to coach the doctors who too had come for the training session.
“There were teams of nearly five or more people, including a doctor, from across the districts for the training session in Lucknow. Dr Suryakant interacted with the doctors as well as us. He stressed on the use of certain medicines, their dosage for various age groups and what can instantly be given,” said Sanjay Ram, a health volunteer from Gorakhpur.
Each team which arrived from districts had a party person, a doctor from the district, an information technology person and a coordinator.
“Now, these people would train volunteers. For instance, there are 1294 gram-panchayats in Gorakhpur region, and we will help train one male and one female volunteer in each of these panchayats,” he said.
“God forbid if Covid strikes again, we will be ready with some essentials like medicines. In case someone is displaying symptoms, we will, based on the person’s condition, decide whether he/she requires home quarantine or needs to be shifted to the nearest primary health centre,” he added.
It would be mandatory for the health volunteers to be vaccinated and create awareness about double dose vaccination too, the volunteers said. “We have been given the mantra of ‘mera booth, Covid mukt (my booth, Covid free)’. But we will work for creating a Covid-free environment not just at the booth-level but in society too,” one of them said.
Details of all the sick, the volunteers said, would be fed into a portal and shared with the party and the government for proper monitoring.
