Prime Minister Narendra Modi has asked BJP leaders to reach out to the youth while party President Amit Shah said the Lok Sabha election of 2019 was the ruling party’s next big challenge.

In the first meeting of the BJP Parliamentary Party after the recent Assembly polls, the party top brass also decided to a week-long series of events to mark BR Ambedkar’s birth anniversary on April 14.

The political programme to coincide with the Ambedkar anniversary includes an exercise in every panchayat and ward in the country. The BJP will also celebrate its foundation day on April 6 during which its leaders and workers will take part in ‘Swachh Bharat’ campaign.

The PM asked party leaders to work during the week to give a boost to the use of BHIM app, a digital payment application, by educating the masses about it and helping them download it, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar told reporters after the meeting.

They were also asked to publicise Ambedkar’s works and contributions. The Prime Minister said the youth should be made “ambassadors” of the Union government’s public welfare works and good governance.

Modi said youngsters depend on mobile phones more than on newspapers and TV channels to get information and stressed on the need to use this medium of communication to tap them. He also asked the party leaders to contact them while they are in Class XII.

‘A vote for development’

Shah said the party’s win in the recently concluded Assembly polls was an outcome of people’s vote against casteism, family rule and corruption and in favour of Modi’s leadership under which public welfare and good governance is the agenda.

The BJP Parliamentary Party also passed a resolution thanking voters for their support and also party’s workers for their efforts under the leadership of Modi and Shah.

It also expressed hope that the BJP governments in these states will provide good governance and run public welfare programmes.