Gujarat BJP MLAs gifted latest tablets to counter simmering anger among people

Gujarat BJP has decided to gift state-of-the-art tablets to 112 of its MLAs in the state including ministers, each tablet costing Rs 58,000. Over a dozen ministers are school dropouts and a large number of them and the MLAs have outsourced their social media handles to IT professionals to manage. Many, say BJP insiders, are not computer literate and may not know how to use the tablets. But ahead of the election next year, they are under orders to ramp up party propaganda and reach out to the people.

State BJP president C R Patil, while addressing BJP MLAs, asked them to use the multi-media features of the tablet in their constituencies to educate voters about the various welfare schemes Prime Minister Narendra Modi has launched for the people.

He said the party will be giving each of them a tablet loaded with latest applications to help them communicate with the people with audio-visual messages.

BJP MLA from Abdasa in Kutch, Pradyumansinh Jadeja, who has studied upto the fourth standard, still uses pictorial language to communicate, pointed out BJP insiders. Eight state ministers had dropped out of school before class X, they added, wondering if the scheme could really work in the state.

Seven BJP MLAs have not studied up to the fifth class.

The party had earlier asked all the MLAs and ministers to use social media platforms, Facebook and Twitter, to highlight the achievements of the government, the party and their own. But, barring a few cabinet ministers, no one uses the social media and those who do have ‘outsourced’ to IT professionals.

With low level of literacy, not to speak of zero computer literacy, the tablet will only have ornamental value or be used by the MLAs’ kith and kin or his/her sidekick, commented a worker of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, a student of Gujarat University.

During the second wave of the coronavirus pandemic, when a large number of patients died due to non-availability of hospital bed, life-saving medicine and Oxygen, many BJP legislators – MLAs and MPs – had to face the anger of people in their constituencies.

Several audio recordings of telephonic conversations had gone viral on social media in which party workers were heard warning the leaders that people were so angry with them that they better avoid visiting the constituency to escape from being chased and beaten up by the people.

During the last three months between March and May, when the state saw thousands of deaths from Covid-19, no MLA and MP was seen in public. Even Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah did not visit the state as they were pre-occupied with electioneering in West Bengal and Assam.

Multi-media publicity campaigns by BJP MLAs are unlikely to wipe out the bitter memories of the tragedies people had to face during the second wave of the coronavirus pandemic and the criminal apathy of the party leaders towards people’s plight, concede even party workers.