His day starts at 9 am with a team of young tech-savvy people. A mechanical engineer by profession, GS Raghuvanshi has come to Uttar Pradesh with an aim and purpose. He is working day and night for the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) IT Cell and is actively involved in the saffron brigade’s social media wing. This worker of the BJP is a unique supporter of the party. He works in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and has taken a two-month leave just to work for the BJP, but without even taking a single penny.
This is not the first time he has come to India to help the party. He had previously worked for the BJP during the 2014 general elections and had aggressively campaigned for the party in Vidisha in Madhya Pradesh. Notably, Vidisha is the parliamentary constituency of External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj.
From his busy schedule, he took some out for InUth and met us over a cup of coffee. Recalling his journey, he said: “I have taken a two-month leave to work for the party. It gives me immense pleasure that I am a part of the team for crucial UP elections. It doesn’t matter whether I get anything or not, I’ve come with a purpose and that is to support my party. I want the BJP to come to power in UP and we are working hard to make it happen,” said Raghuvanshi.
Here’s a gist of our conversation:
When did you start working for the party?
For me, things changed in 2013 when I started taking interest in politics. I started watching world news but later moved to watching India-centric news since the country was gearing up for 2014 Lok Sabha polls. After observing all the political parties and opinions of their leaders, I felt that the elections were going in the wrong direction. Instead of giving the report card of last 10 years, Congress leaders wanted to contest elections on the basis of religion and caste, taking advantage of a fear factor of a certain section of society.
In early 2014, I along with a group of like-minded people started ‘friends of BJP’ in the UAE. We decided to do things for the party. We started using social media to campaign for the party and kept posting on Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp. We organised ‘chai pe charcha’ and ‘run for unity’ in the UAE.
What motivates you to work for the party for free?
After 2014 results, I returned to the UAE and continued working in the Oil and Gas industry. The first decision of the Modi government was forming SIT on black money and then I thought that the party was working in the right direction. Then I kept keenly watching the government’s decisions to assess whether we were right in working for the party or not.
Schemes like Jan Dhan Yojna, Swach Bharat Abhiyan, OROP, Mission Indradhanush etc were great decisions according to me and they are enough to motivate me to selflessly work for the party.
How important is social media?
The power of social media can make or break when we talk in terms of elections. Everybody, especially the youngsters have a smartphone these days and it is very easy to spread your message among the masses. Ground-level campaigning plus social media campaigning can make you win elections.
