New Delhi: Tapping first-time voters, holding young women’s conferences and reaching out to professionals — these are among the various targeted strategies that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will use as part of its massive outreach programme towards women voters in the election-bound states of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, and Chhattisgarh.
All three states will see assembly elections later this year.
Vanathi Srinivasan, the national president of the BJP’s Mahila Morcha — the party’s women’s wing — told ThePrint that the organisation would organise 1000 ‘yuvati sammelans’ (conferences for young women) in each assembly seat in Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, and Madhya Pradesh.
The development comes in the backdrop of a possible dip in women voters’ preference for the BJP in the Karnataka assembly election held in May. The India Today-Axis My India exit poll had found that the Congress was preferred by 40 percent of women voters, compared to 34 percent who preferred the BJP.
The central leadership’s apprehensions may have been intensified in the wake of two events that have caused public outrage this year — a protest by wrestlers over alleged sexual harassment by former Wrestling Federation of India chief and BJP MP Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, and a viral video from Manipur that showed two women being paraded naked by a mob.
According to Srinivasan, the party has already started its outreach efforts, especially towards first-time women voters. The idea is to have a dialogue with them and make them aware of the welfare schemes especially implemented for them by the Narendra Modi government, she said.
“In Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh, we will intensify our efforts to highlight how violence against women has been increasing and women’s safety is being neglected by the Congress government,” she said.
In Rajasthan, the BJP has already made the safety of women a major election issue, launching a statewide campaign called ‘Nahi Sahega Rajasthan’ in an attempt to corner the state’s Ashok Gehlot-led Congress government on the issue of crimes against women.
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Women leaders’ conference, block-level interactions
According to Srinivasan, the BJP is looking to target women voters aged between 18 and 25. “We have been highlighting these issues in the states but now we will have a personal dialogue with the women,” she said. “All women workers (of the BJP) have been given clear directions to spend at least 5-10 minutes with women voters and make them aware of the schemes that are currently in place for them.”
In Madhya Pradesh, the party will organise block-level interactions with women voters, said Mahila Morcha national vice-president Rekha Gupta
In addition, the party will also organise voter awareness programmes for young voters.
“Apart from this, on Raksha Bandhan (30 August), all women workers and women from each assembly segment will send a rakhi to Chief Minister Shivraj Chouhan, who will hold a video conference with them to wish them on the day,” she added.
The party also plans to organise women leaders’ conferences in all smart cities in the poll-bound states, Gupta said. The party will reach out to women professionals such as doctors, teachers, and social workers through these conferences.
(Edited by Uttara Ramaswamy)
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