Rs 500. What BJP Lawmakers Will Pay For Workshop on Schemes for Poor

New Delhi: For a workshop on schemes for the poor, to be addressed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP lawmakers will pay Rs 500.

The one-day workshop on Sunday aims to educate the party's MPs on how to promote and help implement centrally-sponsored schemes for the poor.

Those who want to attend will have to pay Rs 500 as registration fee, but no one really thinks participation is optional.

Sources say MPs do not want to risk being admonished by the leadership for not attending or even arriving late for the workshop.

More than once, they have been prodded by the party to come prepared in Parliament and have also been warned that their conduct is being watched.

Many MPs have reportedly already registered for the Sunday sessions.

Senior ministers will "guide and motivate" the MPs on various welfare schemes, says the BJP's press release on the event being held a day before Parliament resumes the budget session.

PM Modi will make the inaugural speech while BJP president Amit Shah will speak at the close of the workshop.

The focus on schemes for the poor indicates a distinct shift in the stance of the Modi government, which has confronted aggressive protests against its proposed law to make land acquisitions easier for industrial and key infrastructure projects. The Congress and other opposition parties have attacked the measure as anti-farmer.

In the weekend workshop, ministers like Sushma Swaraj, Nitin Gadkari and Venkaiah Naidu will address sessions and try to bring MPs up to speed on central schemes for farmers and the poorest in India.

"The success of the schemes directly depends on the involvement of local public representatives, who need to have proper understanding of the schemes and should make a concerted effort for cooperation of people and involvement of the bureaucracy," the party's press release said.

For the workshop, the BJP has collaborated with "Rambhau Mhalagi Prabodhini," a Mumbai-based think tank headed by party leader Vinay Sahastrabuddhe.