To flatter young voters in the age group of 18-25 years, the BJP has assigned its youth wing the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM) to organise “Coffee with young voters” programme in most of the constituencies from where the party is fielding candidates. Earlier, Chaiwala jibe gave tremendous publicity to PM Modi and “Chai pe Charcha” was their prime focus during 2014 Parliamentary and assembly elections. Though the Chaiwala and Chai was losing its taste. BJP is the party with good strategies and campaigns. Through “Coffee with young voters” and interactions, BJP aims to encash on the recent abrogation of Article 370 and section 35A from Jammu and Kashmir by highlighting the importance of the decision. Instructions have been given to the organisers of these events to portray BJP as the only party that can safeguard the country, its borders and its interests. The events are set to kickstart in phases in the next two days.
The state-level programme is aimed at reaching out to the maximum number of young voters who will play a crucial role in government formation.
As per the given schedule, none of the events should be of less than 90 minutes at each of the scheduled venues. BJYM has been asked to rope-in party’s young MLAs and MPs with good oratory skills .The Q&A sessions should last for about an hour in each session. As a part of the preparation, about 10 MPs under 40 years of age have already been lined up and their schedule in the state would soon be made public. Instructions have also been given to ensure that the events are organised at each of the revenue headquarters in the districts and the venue should be spacious enough to accommodate between 1,200-1,500 youths.
The dates for the programmes in each of the districts across the state are being finalised, so that there is no overlap.
The BJYM coordinators for each of the districts have been asked to make appropriate arrangements to ferry the young voters only from the assembly constituencies being contested by the BJP candidates.
During the general elections held earlier this year, more than 8.73 crore voters in the state, 1.19 crore first-time voters alone. The young voters are playing a key role in BJP’s winning spree. As a result, they have decided to bridge the gap between our young leaders and voters. BJP’s war rooms have been assigned the job to publicise the programme through social media networks and target youths with the content aimed at prompting them with nationalistic sentiments.
The “volunteers” campaigning for Narendra Modi have proven more of a liability than an asset for the BJP.
The hype around the smart crowd of young volunteers in the Citizens for Accountable Governance (CAG) has subsided simultaneously with its much-touted campaign programmes — NaMo Tea Party and mobilisation around construction of Statue of Unity in Gujarat — coming a cropper over the past couple of months. The collection of iron (Loh Sangrahan) for the construction of Sardar Patel’s Statue of Unity in Gujarat was launched with much fanfare. After the success of “Chai Pe Charcha” in reaching out to common electorate ahead of Lok Sabha election in 2014, the Maharashtra BJP is hoping repeat of the performance in reaching out to the young voters through its new initiative “Coffee with Youth – Yuva Samvad”.
Around 8 lakh news voters, most of them first-timers, have been added to the voter lists of the state since Lok Sabha election in April. In order to reach out to these new voters, the state party has planned 51 programmes under the tag ‘Coffee with Youth’ where the leaders would interact with a couple of thousand young men and women. In first such programme at Mira-Bhayandar Delhi BJP Chief and party MP Manoj Tiwari interacted with local youth. Youths have several questions on their mind that may not get answered every time. BJP’s programme aims to address such questions rather this would be an opportunity for the youngsters to understand the things in right perspective which they may not get through the media or the information they may access from the internet.
BJP’s young brigade has been entrusted with this special focus programme which will go on till October 10. Apart from Tiwari, young leaders like Poonam Mahajan, Pritam Munde, Dr Sujay Vikhe-Patil, Raksha Khadse and Gautam Gambhir are expected to interact with youth under this initiative. Some of the Fadnavis cabinet members like Vinod Tawde and Ranjit Patil and national spokesperson Sambit Patra too are likely to attend some of the programmes on the list. If you’re a coffee drinker, there’s a reason for you to attend these sessions.
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