In the Industrial area of Jalandhar, 22 train rakes full of relief material from states as far away as Gujarat as well as neighbouring Delhi and Haryana are being unloaded in four warehouses, packed in sacks which bear the photo of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and being sent on their way to the 14 flood-affected districts of Punjab.
The sacks contain rice, wheat flour, pulses, cooking oil, spices—as well as an accompanying slogan which says, “BJP Punjab de naal,” or, BJP is with Punjab.
The message of the enormous flood relief operation, unfolding in an aggressive, planned and coordinated way, is unmistakable: PM Modi and the BJP stand with the people in its current hour of crisis, via a “sewa pakhwara”, a “service fortnight,” that began a week ago but is expected to continue for another few months.
BJP workers told The Tribune that as “the floodwaters recede and people return home to find that their lives have been turned upside down,” they will return to find everything from dinner sets to frying pans, cooking pots, casseroles and pressure cookers, charpoys, bedsheets, blankets, towels, all-size garments, footwear, ration, medicines, tarpaulins and mosquito nets—whatever it takes to re-establish a house.
“All the relief material being sent by BJP units from these states is good quality. We have deployed 80 labourers who work in two shifts to prepare kits of the items for distribution,” Jalandhar BJP president Sushil Sharma told this reporter.