The JMM has decided to go on an overdrive to prepare for the 2024 Lok Sabha and Assembly elections in Jharkhand even as BJP national president J.P. Nadda and Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit the state in back-to-back programmes.

J.P. Nadda is scheduled to visit Ranchi on Saturday and attend the concluding programme of the Sankalp Yatra of the party state president Babulal Marandi and is believed to give pep talks to party senior leaders for the 2024 polls and also oversee organisational preparation for the elections.

The Prime Minister will flag off the Centre’s mega outreach campaign Viksit Bharat Sankalp Yatra from Khunti on November 15, the birth anniversary of tribal icon Birsa Munda and the statehood day of Jharkhand.

The developments prompted the JMM to plan a hurriedly called meeting of the party’s district-level and block-level secretaries in Ranchi on Thursday evening which lasted for over five hours.

The meeting’s importance can be gauged from the fact that it was addressed extensively by chief minister Hemant Soren who is also the party’s executive national president.

Giving a clarion call to the JMM leaders to start preparing for the 2024 Lok Sabha and Assembly polls, Soren stressed connecting with more youths and making use of all mediums to propagate the state government’s populist welfare schemes.

“All leaders should start preparing for 2024 from today itself and work on a war footing to connect with more and more youths. We will also have to make meaningful use of various means of publicity. Work to strengthen the social media team and connect with mothers and sisters at the ground level. Go to every corner of the state and connect people with government schemes and provide them information,” said Soren.

“We know that both the elections of 2024 will be crucial for us. Since the formation of the government (in December 2019), we have faced many challenges and have worked to connect lakhs of the state’s people with their rights through various welfare schemes. Many people have got benefits through the Sarkar Apke Dwar (government at your door) campaign. We will start the third phase of the Sarkar Apke Dwar programme (tentatively from November 15) soon. All of you should work to provide benefits to the people in your area and connect them with schemes,” appealed Soren.

He also asked the leaders to inform the masses about the suffering because of inflation and unemployment owing to the wrong policies of the BJP-led central government and alleged that government sectors (PSUs) are being sold to private parties.

Soren is learnt to have taken serious note of complaints by the party officials regarding state government officials’ (bureaucrats) laziness and neglect in implementing development schemes.

JMM’s central general secretary Vinod Pandey informed reporters that the district-level leaders have been instructed to play their role in strengthening the organisation and informing the masses about the government’s schemes.