Modi builds bridge between govt, BJP

New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi has ramped up efforts for a more sustained connect with his party, the BJP. After interacting with members of the BJP's state core committees on Monday, Modi will join a day-long session with chief ministers of states ruled by the party on August 27. The following week, he will participate in a meeting of the BJP's Rajya Sabha MPs. The conferences, convened by BJP president Amit Shah in Delhi, are meant to ensure "better" government-party coordination - a statement of intent that used to be iterated when the BJP was in power under Atal Bihari Vajpayee but not quite fulfilled. Explaining the difference in circumstances between the Vajpayee and Modi regimes, a party official said: "When Atalji was the Prime Minister, there was a sort of demarcation between the government and the party. "It was not as sharply accentuated as the division between the two segments in the UPA's time where Manmohan Singh had virtually nothing to do with the Congress, led by Sonia Gandhi. "But by and large, Atalji kept a distance from the BJP and left matters to Advaniji (L.K. Advani) although Advaniji was the home minister and later the deputy Prime Minister too.... "For Modiji, the party-government distinction is meaningless because he knows unless the party is alive and robust, the government will be just a shell." The official recalled that Shah was made BJP president so that Modi could keep a real time tab on the party. Their association goes back to the days when the Prime Minister was an RSS " pracharak" (whole-timer) in Gujarat and Shah was an activist of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, the Sangh's student wing. Sources say Modi took Shah, who is 14 years younger, in his tutelage and honed his organisational skills. When the chief ministers gather at Delhi's Maharashtra Sadan on Saturday, they are expected to be first briefed about the deliberations and outcomes of the state core committees' meet to "make them aware of the flaws and gaps, if any, between the BJP and their own governments and think up ways of filling them in". Sources said Modi and Shah were "serious" about institutionalising the chief ministers' meet. A panel headed by Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan was set up with central BJP officials Vinay Sahasrabuddhe, Arun Singh and Saudan Singh as members. Arun Singh though dismissed this as a "routine procedure".