New Delhi: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) should work towards enhancing its vote share to 50 percent in next year’s general election, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is learnt to have told party office bearers Saturday.
Speaking on day two of the BJP’s office bearers’ meeting held at its headquarters in the national capital, the prime minister urged the party not to be “complacent and over-confident” after its victories in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, and Rajasthan.
The BJP’s brainstorming session comes just weeks after its resounding victories in three of five assembly elections. It also comes just a month ahead of the grand opening of the Ram temple in Ayodhya, which the BJP hopes to leverage for its Hindutva push in the Hindi heartland.
“Party workers should work on mission mode and work with all four castes — the youth, the poor, women, and farmers — in mind. The target can be achieved by focussing on booths as the party did in Madhya Pradesh,” the prime minister is learnt to have said in his speech.
The government’s only philosophy is to work for the welfare of the poor, the youth, women, and farmers, he said, according to party sources. “This work should reach the ground. The focus should be on making people aware of the schemes. With elections around the corner, party functionaries should be in mission mode to achieve the target of crossing 50 percent vote share,” he said.
Significantly, no party has ever crossed 50 percent vote share in the general elections. In the 1984 election that was held soon after former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s assassination, the Congress led by her son Rajiv secured 404 of the parliament’s 514 seats. Similarly, in 1962, the Congress led by former prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru secured 361 seats.
However, the vote share in both cases remained well under 50 percent.
In 2019, the BJP had secured 37.4 percent of votes polled and a total of 303 seats. The National Democratic Alliance overall had secured 45 percent of the votes and a total of 353 seats — its highest ever tally. The BJP secured a 50 percent vote share in 224 of the seats it won.
According to party sources, Saturday’s session also saw the party make plans on how to make the inauguration a major success and paint it as a “cultural renaissance”.
“There were two focus points of the meeting,” a party functionary who attended the session told ThePrint. “The first was on how to get a bigger victory than in 2019 and how to manage the poll preparation and the second was to ensure that the party’s cadre helps make the temple inauguration a big success. The rest was preparatory and gets talked about at every meeting.”
Former Delhi BJP chief and the party’s Lok Sabha MP from Northeast Delhi Manoj Tiwari told ThePrint that the BJP had already got 50 percent vote share in states such as Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat. “Our aim now is to get 350 seats in 2024. Together with the rest of the NDA, the target is 400 seats. It was decided that by focussing on those four castes that the prime minister mentioned, this can be achieved easily,” he said.
In his speech, the PM is also learnt to have asked BJP functionaries to reach out to former party members, even those who are elderly, “so they can feel like they’re part of the family”.
The party should not view opposition candidates, even those who secured only 2,000 votes, “as enemies”. Instead, they should try to win over such candidates to the BJP, he said. “In politics, there’s no such thing as an enemy. Workers should always look for untapped voters. Even if we don’t get support in such groups, social work can get us some traction,” he is learnt to have told office-bearers.
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Voter outreach, propagating central schemes
According to party sources, day one of the session saw BJP national general secretary Vinod Tawde present a blueprint on how to increase the party’s vote share in every booth. The leader also outlined its voter outreach strategy to propagate the central government’s schemes even while tapping into new voter bases, sources said.
“He elaborated on how the party is setting up call centres to contact registered BJP workers and beneficiaries of central schemes to sensitise them about work done by the Modi government in past nine years,” one functionary said.
The party also deliberated on how to leverage the NDA government’s ongoing Viksit Bharat Sankalp Yatra. Launched by Modi earlier this month, the initiative is aimed at taking the benefits of central government schemes — such as Ayushman Bharat — “across the nation”, according to a press release from the Press Information Bureau.
In his speech, Modi also asked state BJP units to secure feedback on the initiative. “Effort should be made that no one is left out of the central schemes’ ambit. This is the only key to a achieve bigger mandate,” he said, giving the example of how booth-level workers took central schemes to voters in Uttar Pradesh in 2022 and more recently, in Madhya Pradesh.
On his part, the BJP’s IT cell head Amit Malviya said the party should focus on its NaMo app. The party has decided that the prime minister will interact with the person with the highest rating on the app, a source said, adding that Malviya also pushed for greater social media interaction at booth levels and setting up of a Viksit Toli, a four-member group that will help ensure greater reach for the central schemes.
“Prime Minister’s focus was to use social media proactively to puncture the Opposition campaign,” a BJP functionary said. “It was decided that the BJP’s campaigns should emphasise the difference between the NDA’s schemes in comparison to the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance, but without getting sidetracked by the Opposition’s campaign.”
Leveraging Ram temple
In his speech on day 2 of the meeting, Home Minister Amit Shah spoke about focussing on booth management. The party had three sessions on election management — Ram Mandir, ongoing election preparation, and social media outreach, sources said.
“Since the inauguration of the Ram Temple is a big civilisational issue that the BJP addressed under Narendra Modi, it should be celebrated at every village of the country,” a functionary quoted earlier said.
For this, BJP general secretary (organisation) B.L. Santhosh told office-bearers that starting January, they should mobilise the cadre to celebrate the temple inauguration as “a symbol of the end of slavery and a cultural renaissance”.
Since every state unit has already given detailed timetables for their people’s visits on and after 22 January — the day of the inauguration — plans were made on how to make it a memorable event. This included social media and booth-level outreach for the inauguration and after that day, bringing people to Ayodhya through special trains, a source said.
“Since the Ram Temple will be one of the big election issues for the Lok Sabha, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) is mobilising 10 crore people for the inauguration ceremony,” this source said. “The BJP workers are being urged to push the temple agenda for two months — January and February — and gain more purchase in the Hindi heartland, where the BJP has the most stakes.”
In his speech, Shah urged workers to use the opportunity to ensure that “the temple construction is remembered for centuries to come”.
“The mandate should be bigger in 2024 than in 2019. The party has to rule for the next 30 years. So, every effort should be made for that, but our approach should be positive,” he is learnt to have told office-bearers.
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Focus on ‘weak’ seats
The BJP also reviewed plans to make a push in its “weak areas”, sources said. This includes the 160 parliamentary seats where it considers itself weak.
According to the sources, these seats have been identified and segregated into clusters, which have been entrusted to Union ministers and senior leaders of the party.
For several months now, the party has been urging its Union ministers to dedicate some time from their schedule and focus on these weak seats, the sources said. This includes ensuring the penetration of central schemes in these areas, propagating infrastructure projects, and getting feedback and suggestions.
Another plan is to announce their candidates in these seats as early as possible as they did in Madhya Pradesh, another functionary said, adding that in that state, the party won 24 of its 39 “weak seats”.
“The BJP does not want to give the Opposition any advantage. It will start announcing its candidates before the election is announced to give them more time to work on weak areas. It could come as soon as just after the Ram Temple inauguration in January,” a source said.