Inside the Birsa Saraswati Shishu Vidya Mandir of Khunti district’s Salehatu village, about a dozen schoolteachers or Acharyas gather to pick up their share of pink pamphlets that will eventually end up in homes across Adivasi villages surrounding the school. The pamphlets are printed by the Lok Jagran Manch, an affiliate of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), formed to raise voter awareness. The school where the pamphlets are being prepared for distribution, has been set up and is run by the Vanvasi Kalyan Kendra (VKK), another affiliate of the Sangh Parivar.
In Gumla district, adjacent to Khunti, Khedu Nayak, a ground worker of the VKK, is readying the same pink pamphlets for panchayat-level meetings, from where each village head will be tasked to distribute it to households in their respective villages.
From going door-to-door with these pamphlets to mobilising schoolteachers for outreach, the Sangh Parivar is going all out to canvass votes in Sarna-dominated districts across South Jharkhand on behalf of the Bharatiya Janata Party as the region is set to vote in the first phase of the Jharkhand Assembly election this November 13.
While the pamphlets do not mention the party to vote for by name, it asks voters to pick the party that “promises an National Register of Citizens [NRC] to identify infiltrators”, and is committed to “punish those responsible for Love Jihad”, “respects Indian culture, religion and protects religious places”, and “works against religious conversion and cow slaughter”.
This story was originally published in thehindu.com. Read the full story here.
