BJP scales down its cadre training target by over 18%

NEW DELHI: Within a span of one year, the BJP has cut its target of trained cadres by over 18%. The downward revision has come in the backdrop of the party barely managing to train a little over half of the target of 15 lakhs.

Riding on the momentum of party’s massive membership drive early last year, BJP President Amit Shah had set aggressive training target, however, the party seems to be nowwhere close to meeting its goals.

“About 7.76 lakh workers have already been trained and now we plan to take this to 12.25 lakh,” Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said while briefing about Shah’s remarks during the party’s national executive last week.

While Prasad underlined that the training work could not take place in seven states where state units have been pre-occupied with election works, the new target of 12.25 lakh shows over 18% cut over the initial target fixed by the BJP chief.

Party sources, however, played down this revision and underlined that PM Narendra Modi has praised party’s training to 7.76 lakh workers.

“This is no mean an achievement,” a party source quoted PM as having said at party organisation during the National Executive for its training work after its successful drive to enroll over 11 crore members into the party since party’s victory during 2014 Lok Sabha elections.

As for another organizational work to build a party office in each of 578 district units of the party announced by Amit Shah during party’s Bangalore national executive last year, party sources revealed that substantial steps have been taken to achieve that even though it may fall short of its target.

As against 170 district units where party had its own property housing party offices, the party has procured land and begun work in 178 new districts; the national executive was told over the weekend about the progress on last year’s announcement.