Raipur: The Congress is looking to recreate its Chhattisgarh victory in Assam this year where the ruling BJP-led coalition had swept to power in 2016, pushing out a Congress government and installing one under Sarbananda Sonowal.
In 2018, the Congress successfully used a booth management model to win 68 of the 90 Chhattisgarh assembly seats that put Bhupesh Baghel in the chief minister’s chair. Baghel has now been tasked with delivering Assam back to the Congress. Several leaders and workers from the Chhattisgarh Congress have also been deputed to run the Assam campaign.
Assam will undergo a three-phase election for 126 assembly seats, beginning on 27 March. At present, the BJP holds 60 seats while the ruling coalition holds 74. The Congress has 19 seats of the total 44 held by the opposition.
Congress leaders currently deployed in Assam told ThePrint that the party’s thinking is that it is absolutely necessary to strengthen cadres at the booth level. Advisor to Chhattisgarh CM Baghel, Rajesh Tiwari, who bears the key responsibility of training Assam Congress workers in booth management, said, “In Assam, our basic preparation, including booth management, was too weak to ensure electoral success. Very little attention was paid towards this in the past.”
After a review of the ground situation in all the assembly constituencies, the party got to work.
“First of all, booth committees were formed and ground-level workers were trained. In the course of (the) training programme, the focus has been to inform booth-level workers about educating/informing the voters regarding key electoral issues in the state, to prepare them to vote in favor of the party and then finally, to ensure their turnout on the election day,” Tiwari said.
He added that booth-level workers in about 100 constituencies were trained during phase 1 of the campaign that started on 7 February. “The task will be completed very soon in the remaining 26 assembly constituencies also. Due to this, the booth-level workers have now become energised and fully active,” Tiwari added.
While Baghel has been made election-in-charge of Assam, around 25-30 electoral strategists and prominent leaders of the Chhattisgarh Congress have been camping in Assam for the past month. Another 70-80 workers are expected to join the efforts before the polls.
Many of them are among the strategists who played a prominent role in Congress’s Chhattisgarh win. This team will also include around 50 folk artists from Chhattisgarh, whose job is to win the favour of about 25 lakh Chhattisgarh migrant labour currently working in the tea gardens of Upper Assam.
In Chhattisgarh, the Congress had reconstituted booth level committees that had become fragile under BJP’s terms. Booth committee members were trained and then motivated to reach voters, which the party believes is what led to its comeback after 15 years.
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Chhattisgarh way of doing things
The Chhattisgarh Congress team has been given complete command over the booth management training. Ruchir Garg, the media in-charge of Chhattisgarh CM Baghel, said, “Currently, Congress leaders from several states are working in Assam, but the entire project of booth management training will be in the hands of the Chhattisgarh team. Here, a selected band of those Chhattisgarh Congress leaders are involved in active campaigning who did the majority of groundwork to ensure the party’s bumper victory in the 2018 assembly elections.”
According to Garg, who has been working in Assam for the last month, Chhattisgarh Congress leaders are active in all four major regions of the Northeastern state — Upper Assam, Lower Assam, Hill Area and Barak Valley — where they have been coordinating with the state’s party workers.
“The impact of booth-level training is fully visible. For the first time, the booth-level workers in all the assembly constituencies are sitting together. Constant discussions are going and they appear fully prepared to ensure the party’s victory in the upcoming assembly elections,” said a Chhattisgarh Congress leader who asked not to be named.
The booth-level training not only focuses on the pro-Congress message but also the promises the BJP has failed to keep during Sonowal’s term.
“Apart from booth management training, every polling booth worker was also provided a briefing regarding betrayal of electoral promises — like water supply of Brahmaputra river, employment to 25 lakh people and increase in salaries of tea garden workers — by the BJP government of the state. The matter of conveying this message to the voters in an effective manner was also discussed,” said Tiwari.
AICC Secretary and Raipur MLA Vikas Upadhyay, who is state in-charge of Assam Congress, told ThePrint, ”We want to take full advantage of our experience of ensuring a bumper victory for the party in the 2018 Chhattisgarh Legislative Assembly elections after a gap of 15 years and wish to reenact the same kind of landslide victory in Assam that was achieved in Chhattisgarh due to hard work done by grassroots workers in that state. In accordance with the intent expressed by the Congress leadership Team Chhattisgarh is fully active in Assam.”
On the one hand, Upadhyay said, the party is talking with grassroots workers about being sensitive towards the legacy of the Congress party, and on the other hand, it is putting emphasis on convincing the people to vote for a change “by telling them about the issues of communal and disruptive politics of the BJP, betrayal of electoral promises by the state government and the degradation of development works in the state in the last five years”.
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Chhattisgarh immigrants a key focus area
The Assam campaign team is also working to secure the votes of the about 25 lakh Chhattisgarh migrant labourers living in the state.
“They have been identified and a large group of folk artists from the state will come to Assam to woo these migrants. Some of these artists have already come to Assam,” said Tiwari.
Garg, Bhagel’s media in-charge, said, “We got to know about this large number of Chhattisgarhi migrants in Assam only after we came here. After this, a survey was conducted to find more information about their areas of influence and then a plan was chalked out to campaign among them.” He added that some Chhattisgarh MLAs will also be coming to campaign among the migrants.
UP after Assam
The party’s central leadership is also planning to use the Chhattisgarh formula when Uttar Pradesh goes to polls in 2022. According to party leaders, once the Assam election is done, the team of strategists and party workers will head to Uttar Pradesh.
“In UP too, booth units of Congress workers will have to be formed in many assembly constituencies. Right now, we do not have booth-level units in several assembly constituencies… Before commencing the current assignment in Assam, the work of booth and social media related training of state leaders had been completed there (in UP) in two phases. Its effect is also getting reflected there,” Tiwari said.
The party wants to speed up organisational activities in the state once Assam elections are done.
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Imagining too much with no responsibility and accountability.