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Creating jobs to providing drinking water in villages: 100 days of Yogi govt 2.0
With an eye on the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, BJP ministers have been continuously striving towards achieving the goals set by the state government
The second term of Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath’s tenure is set to complete 100 days on Tuesday.
With an eye on the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, BJP ministers have been continuously striving towards achieving the goals set by the state government.
They are trying to strengthen the party’s strong foothold in the state and also wanting to emulate the same in the run up to the Lok Sabha polls.
In the past 100 days, BJP leaders of the state are focused on improving their voters’ base in about 35,000 odd booths where the party’s internal report suggests a neutral voter-base that could be receptive to the BJP.
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The pattern of “anti-BJP” voting in about 40,000 booths in a few remaining opposition citadels in the state are also being studied.
“The first 100 days offer a condensed view of the roadmap that the party will take over the next 650 days or so,” a UP minister said.
The 2024 Lok Sabha polls are expected in as much time, party leaders explained.
The party is also focused on ensuring the maximum coverage of their schemes so that it includes more beneficiaries.
For instance, they created a new voter base of ‘labarthi (beneficiaries)’ who received two free meals during Covid surge and backed the BJP.
“The target is to reach out to all the eligible beneficiaries,” a BJP leader said, adding that the process will now gather further pace.
On the occasion of 100 days of its government, CM Adityanath flew to the national Capital to meet the top leadership along with two deputy chief ministers.
The CM had asked all his ministers to hit the ground running and to spend weekends out of the state capital, spend time with people and ask for feedback about the government’s functioning.
Deputy CM Keshav Prasad Maurya is currently engaged in creating job opportunities in rural areas. CM Aditynath is also mulling the feasibility of a family card for each family, a step aimed at creating employment or entrepreneurial options for at least one member of each family.
On the other hand, deputy CM Brajesh Pathak, who holds the health portfolio, ensured he was kept abreast of the issues faced by people in government hospitals.
Pathak used to call up patients in government hospitals in five districts randomly for a status-check of services.
UP’s Jal Shakti minister Swatantra Dev’s department is also readying plans to provide drinking tap water facility in water scarce regions like Bundelkhand and Vindhya regions.
Taking a leaf out of deputy CM Maurya’s book, transport minister Daya Shankar Singh is also engaging with the general public to query their problems. Recently, Singh entered a government bus and asked passengers about the problems they faced.
The second stint of the Yogi government has so far been remarkably different.
Unlike in Yogi’s first stint when various working groups were set up by then BJP chief Amit Shah to iron out issues among the party and the government, the second stint has been different.
The party and the government publicly are on the same page with CM Adityanath lavishing praise on the party’s state chief Swatantra Dev and general secretary (organisation) Sunil Bansal.
Political experts feels if BJP can continue to do the good work, they could easily win the constituencies that they lost in the previous polls.
“In 2019, Amethi, a Congress fort fell. Recently, the BJP won Azamgarh and Rampur, two Samajwadi Party citadels. Now, in terms of representation two leading citadels where a win would be huge, are Mainpuri, the Lok Sabha constituency of Mulayam Singh ji and Rae Bareli, the constituency of Congress chief Sonia Gandhi,” said Irshad Ilmi, a political observer.
Ilmi feels that if the party’s booth-management in the opposition space falls into place, ‘Mission Clean Sweep’ might not be “impossible.”
