BJP’s booth plan rides on bikers, smartphones
Compiling a list of smartphone-carrying voters and deploying at least five motorbike-riding party workers in each polling station and poaching workers from rival parties – these are part of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s “booth plan” for the 2019 general election.
The ruling party has finalised a 22-point action plan to win over new supporters and reinforce its existing strength at the polling station level, two BJP leaders familiar with the matter said on condition of anonymity .
“This is keeping the next year’s parliamentary election in mind,” the first leader said. “We are leaving nothing to chance.”
Booth management is central to the BJP’s election strategy and its chief Amit Shah is touring every state to review the party’s preparedness for the 2019 election. Starting with Chhattisgarh on June 10, Shah is to visit each state by the end of July, the second BJP leader said, adding:. “The booth plan has been shared with each state unit and they have been asked to start working on it.”
The “to do” list include grading booths under the “A, B, C & D” categories. An A category booth would be one in which most of the votes were cast in
NEW DELHI:
favour of the BJP in the last election, while D would be one in which the BJP got the least votes. Responsibility for management of D category polling stations will be assigned to grassroots workers and C to officer bearers.
“At the outset, this is an initiative to activate the cadres and BJP’s ideological co-travellers,” said Sidharth Mishra, president of the Centre for Reforms, Development and Justice, a think tank. “But in the face of a united opposition, the effectiveness of this plan will only be feasible if the messages are taken in the right spirit by voters in each of these booths.”
The booth plan asks office bearers at the mandal level – the lowest administrative unit in the BJP’s organisational hierarchy – to be assigned 5 booths each, and efforts will be made to convert the “D” category booth into “C” through “certain activities”.