As the Bharatiya Janata Party state unit gears up for Lok Sabha election, the focus will be on vistaraks – a new brand of party workers who will promote the party’s policies and strengthen its base at village level.
At a recent meeting held at the BJP headquarters in Lucknow, senior BJP leaders imparted training to vistaraks and asked them to make people aware of the party’s policies and the achievements of the government. They were asked to meet people regularly at booth level and interact with them.
The vistaraks in the BJP are just clones of pracharaks in the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. A the pracharaks propagate RSS policies among people, vistaraks do the same for the BJP. They are not salaried but are paid expenses and nominal money by the party. People from all caste and creed are working as vistaraks.
“Only motivated and dedicated party workers, who have the zeal to work for the party, are appointed as vistaraks. They have to travel and meet people to ensure propagation of policies of the party.” in-charge of vistaraks in BJP, Vijay Bahadur Pathak, told this reporter.
Network of these vistaraks is very wide and intense. There are 300 vistaraks working across Uttar Pradesh — roughly one vistarak in each assembly constituency. Last year, their number was 150 but with the election just six months away, the party has doubled the number to 300. If needed, the BJP might further increase the number of vistaraks and they may work at the block level.
“This is a new experiment which will be effective till 2019 elections. These vistaraks are not part of decision-making and will have no say in selection of candidates. Their job is limited to strengthening party base and reporting to mandal in-charge, who in turn will pass on the information to district chief and then to state party president,” Pathak said.
The vistarak system has been active for the last one year. Besides training them on party’s policies, they are also given points to be communicated to the people and how.
“These vistaraks hold the key as they are working at booth level. If our booth is strong, we have won half our battle,” Pathak said.
