Top BJP leaders to have tea with locals while listening to ‘Mann ki Baat’ today

Tea is back in the BJP’s arsenal for Gujarat polls.

Over 100 top party leaders from across the country will fan out in Gujarat on Sunday to hold debates over tea about the Con- gress’ “elitist” mindset.

The online magazine of Congress’ youth wing had recently used a ‘chaiwala’ meme to target Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s background of a tea seller, prompting an immediate counter-attack from the BJP.

On Sunday, BJP leaders will attend programmes at each of the 50,128 polling stations to listen to Modi’s monthly radio speech ‘Mann Ki Baat’. The party’s programme has been named ‘Mann Ki Baat, Chai Ke Saath’.

Prominent among those who are part of the event are BJP president Amit Shah, finance minister Arun Jaitley, nine other Union ministers, Gujarat chief minister Vijay Rupani, and his deputy Nitin Patel, among others.

Shah will be in Ahmedabad, Jaitley and petroleum minister Dharmendra Pradhan in Surat, rail minister Piyush Goyal in Porbandar, drinking water and sanitation minister Uma Bharti in Vadodara and textiles minister Smriti Irani in Junagadh. Rupani will attend the event in Panchmahal, while state BJP chief Jitu Vaghani will be in Bhavnagar.

“This is to take to every booth the message about Congress’ elitist mindset, which does not appreciate the rise of people from modest background,” BJP’s social media chief Amit Malviya said. “Leaders will listen to the radio programme with local residents and have tea with them.”

BJP sources said party leaders will discuss with residents how the Congress was uncomfortable with Modi being the PM and often used derogatory references for him. The BJP has tried to turn tables on its rival, with its workers selling tea outside Congress offices. With the outreach, the party seeks to achieve the twin objectives of invoking Gujarati asmitaa (pride) and preparing the ground for Modi’s campaign launch on November 27.