Prime Minister Narendra Modi who had an hour-long “straight talk” with ten BJP general secretaries at his 7, RCR residence last week, resorted to “seedhi baat” yet again with party MPs, asking them to put an end to the culture of sycophancy and desist from touching the feet of senior leaders.
On Friday, Modi reminded BJP MPs that they were no longer in the Opposition and hence were saddled with the greater responsibility of highlighting the Government’s programmes. Asking them to work hard and marshal facts before speaking in the House, Modi also spoke against the tendency of a section of party MPs to remain absent. These directions from the ‘24x7 Prime Minister’ came during the BJP’s Parliamentary party meeting on Friday.
A couple of days ago, Modi had asked his Cabinet Ministers to give details of the allocation of work to their Ministers of State “at the earliest”. During the last Vajpayee Government and UPA’s decade-long governance, several Ministers of State were left with almost no work with Cabinet Ministers keeping all meaty subjects to themselves. The Modi Government is apparently working towards genuinely empowering the Ministers of State in all Ministries.
In an unambiguous message to the party’s newly-elected lawmakers, Modi said as the BJP was no longer in the Opposition, its MPs had a far bigger responsibility in taking the message of the Government’s policies and programmes to the people. In his 20-minute speech in the Central Hall of Parliament, Modi asked the MPs to remain in touch with the people at the grass roots and not become complacent after the party’s stupendous victory.
Giving a pep talk to the MPs, he asked them to shun publicity and focus more on authentic work and remain in touch with the common man. Instead of reaching out to the media, he is understood to have asked MPs to raise their voice in the House on issues plaguing their constituencies, armed with all the facts and figures.
BJP patriarch lK Advani spoke about the historic win of the party and the long distance covered by the party from just two MPs to 282 MPs, with a clear majority of its own in the 16th lok Sabha. last Saturday, the Prime Minister had asked BJP general secretaries to be a bridge between the Government and the party and look ahead to Assembly polls in several states this year and early next year.
Significantly, the bureaucracy in North Block and South Block was abuzz this week with rumours that the Modi-Government would soon enforce a six-day week working schedule for all Central Government offices. There seems to be more tightening of screws by the new dispensation with a firm time-frame for achieving targets, be it in the Government, party or Parliament.