Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday met party MPs behind closed doors at Parliament House but spoke not a word about Kashmir while lecturing them on the importance of being karyakartas, sources said.
Modi’s opening speech at the two-day “abhyas varga” or workshop for BJP parliamentarians came a day after the government stopped the Amarnath Yatra and asked tourists and pilgrims to leave Kashmir amid a troops build-up, evoking all kinds of fears.
If the MPs had thought they would receive a briefing on what had prompted the extraordinary measures in the Valley, they were mistaken, the sources said.
What they received were lessons on the BJP ideology and on how to become a successful public representative.
Modi said the BJP had been successful because of its “ideology and thoughts” and asked the MPs to keep the “karyakarta” (worker) within them alive.
Home minister Amit Shah and other senior ministers attended the workshop, apparently as a signal that everything was normal. Shah will address the MPs on Sunday.
Parliamentary affairs minister Pralhad Joshi later briefed reporters on what Modi had told the gathering.
“The BJP is an organic entity and not an assembled entity. It has reached (the top) because of its ideology and thoughts, not because of one family’s legacy,” Modi told the MPs, taking the habitual dig at the Congress.
“The party worker within you should remain alive even if you become a minister or an MP. Irrespective of your age, always remain a student so that the learning process goes on.”
Demonstrating the importance of remaining an ordinary party worker, Modi walked to the back of the hall and sat down, presumably as an ordinary MP among ordinary MPs. Party MP Kirron Kher later tweeted a picture of Modi sitting on the backbenches to highlight his act.
The Prime Minister also acted the schoolmaster, pulling up those taking notes during his speech and telling them to “listen and digest”, some of those present said.
Modi described the BJP’s victory in Tripura’s local body polls as a victory for “development politics” and the party ideology. He asked the MPs to interact with and learn from the party workers in the Northeast.
He drew a mother-son analogy to illustrate how to become a successful public representative.
“Just like a mother becomes insecure when her son gets married and focuses his attention on his wife, your favourite people in the constituency think now that you are an MP, you won’t take their calls or attend to them. A successful leader is one who strikes a balance between his work and his people,” Modi said.
Later, other BJP leaders including party working president J.P. Nadda addressed the MPs. Joshi said that ministers will from now on hold monthly dinner meetings with the MPs in batches to educate them on how the government functions.