The 'interesting innovation' that can help Modi boost his chances in 2019

Heard of the central prabhari officer (CPO)? You may have, if you frequent sarkari corridors. But if you haven’t, you should know —CPO is one of the most interesting innovations of this BJP government in the run-up to the 2019 polls.

As an organisation, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has adapted with every election since 2014, especially at the grassroots through the booth-level panna prabhari/pramukh (in-charge of every page of the voter list) system. But, in 2019, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be seeking re-election as an incumbent, not as a challenger. BJP realises that this would require government and party to not just coordinate but function in sync with each other.

And, thus, the floating, yet crucial, designation of CPO. Much like prabharis (in-charge officers) within BJP who are entrusted with a state or two, these are Delhi-based senior government officers who have been given a district each to shepherd them from among the 115 aspirational districts identified by the PM.


Politically, this could be a game changer. The CPO must be from the same state cadre as the district being assigned. Typically, backward districts belong to a few states. But it was decided that the programme must touch every corner of the country. Hence, the recast made it mandatory for at least one district from every state to be included, in addition to the 35 Naxal-affected districts and the typical ‘backward’ ones.

Then, innovatively, every district was made to have a senior IAS officer of the rank of additional or joint secretary from the same cadre posted at the Centre as its prabhari to act as a ‘bridge’ between the central and state governments. Mind you, there was some resistance by ministries to free their officers for this work. The Cabinet secretary, it’s believed, had to weigh in on all secretaries to treat this as priority and let designated CPOs do this additional duty.

Collector’s Item
In BJP-ruled states, now comprising two-thirds of the country, state-level prabhari officers have been appointed in the same way from the state bureaucracy. And then there’s the relevant district collector, who now has a twostep monitoring mechanism hanging over his head.

The CPO, who wields considerable clout, can get central programmes tweaked for his districts through an empowered committee of secretaries. Also, whenever the PM goes on a trip that may include any one of these districts, the CPO is to provide a brief. The PM has now made it routine to call district collectors in and around the areas he’s visiting for a meeting.

PM Modi conducted such an exercise in Bijapur, Chhatisgarh. It’s being cited in official circles as the first significant aspirational district to show great results owing to the new prabhari system.

To ensure there’s political oversight, senior ministers have been made responsible for their states — for instance, Rajnath Singh for Uttar Pradesh districts and Sushma Swaraj, whose own constituency Vidisha is on the list, for Madhya Pradesh.

Clearly, the system is carefully overlaid on the existing structure without disrupting existing hierarchies or dislodging officers from their current postings. However, these officers are allowed to go on regular visits to these districts to monitor performance of centrally sponsored schemes and check the commitment levels of the district collector. There are also plans to have private auditors conduct independent evaluation of each district, just in case the prabhari officer is found to slack off.

So, at a broader level, one has mirroring prabhari-like structures in BJP, RSS, and now at the Centre with designated responsibilities. The idea, of course, is to synergise, so as to feed one off the other. This was visible in the recently concluded Gram Swaraj Abhiyan, through which some 17,000 villages were targeted on a war footing to ensure that a basket of seven schemes were fully implemented in each of them.

CPOs — with the help of additional resources, mostly director-level central officers — played a significant role in getting the job done. BJP claimed this as a major success on the occasion of the government’s fourth anniversary, stating that more such campaigns will be carried out.

Change is the Only Accent
The concept of the CPO is also a reminder of how far ahead BJP has moved the needle as a political organisation. Which is why challenging as it may appear after the recent bypoll reversals, the party will always back itself against a united opposition.

But, in the end, it’s one thing to motivate your own party cadre, and quite another to extract work from bureaucrats through a designation they can’t put on their business cards. And, yet, being able to do so with mild institutional resistance only shows how new political forces have transformed the old capital.