Cong pins hopes on BJP’s tested formula
Chhattisgarh Congress chief Bhupesh Baghel was not really excited when a friend suggested training sessions for workers of India’s oldest political party. He found a proposal for a five-hour-long session particularly unamusing. “I have been a Congressman for 35 years and have never done any training session even for two hours. Making workers sit for that long is impossible,” Baghel told an advisor.
Baghel eventually agreed to the idea reluctantly. A banquet hall was booked in Raipur in June last year for the purpose and invitations were sent to 200 booth level workers for the training. The training session in Raipur covered four subjects – the party’s achievements and ideology, the Bharatiya Janata Party’s “truth”, booth level management, and social media.
“The session went on for 7 hours,” said Vinod Verma, Congress’s poll consultant adding that such sessions have since been organised in 87 out of the 90 assembly segments in the state.
The exercise impressed Congress president Rahul Gandhi, who flew to Bastar to attend one such session in August last year.
Baghel was by then excited with the outcome and decided to take a leaf out of BJP president Amit Shah’s book and to formulate a booth-level plan.
This has been BJP’s tested exercise and a new concept for Chhattisgarh Congress. A section unit each was created to cover 100-125 households. A team comprising a woman, a youth and a senior worker was assigned to each section. This is like Shah’s Panna Pramukh concept, wherein he appoints an in-charge for every page of a voter list covering 25-30 voters.
The Congress also set up an executive committee of 21 workers for every booth.
“These activities helped us make a Congress worker vocal – both on the ground and on the social media. Decency is maintained in the discourse,” Verma said.
Congress leaders say the exercise has helped the party overcome the fear factor. has helped the Congress launch a more aggressive campaign.
RAIPUR: CONGRESS TURNS TO AMIT SHAH’S PANNA PRAMUKH CONCEPT IN CHHATTISGARH