Bhopal: Each worker making wake-up calls to 10 others, appointing ‘ardha-panna pramukhs’, deploying MLAs from another state to oversee each of Madhya Pradesh’s 230 assembly seats and replacing workers in their 60s and 70s with younger ones. This is how the Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) clinched 163 seats in the recently-concluded assembly polls.
After returning to power in 2020, the BJP, which garnered 41.02 percent of the total votes polled in the state in 2018, set out to galvanise its workers with a clear objective in mind, to increase the party’s vote share to 51 percent — a target set by Union Home Minister Amit Shah himself.
Three years down the line, as results for the five assembly elections started gushing in, Sunday, it became clear in no time that the BJP had swept the state, winning 163 seats with an upswing of more than seven percentage points in its vote share, which eventually stood at 48.55 percent.
This electoral triumph was powered by three years of efforts by the state BJP to re-energise cadre, proactively address grouses among workers and get all senior leaders on the same page.
Booth adhyaksh & ‘ardha-panna pramukhs’
One example of how the party made a roadmap to get voters to polling booths is the strategy it adopted on polling day.
Foreseeing fatigue gripping workers across the state’s 64,523 booths, a mechanism was put in place for the morning of 17 November: each state BJP leader was tasked with waking up 10 workers and asking them to hit the ground in time and get more and more voters to polling booths. In addition, each of 10 workers was asked to call another 10 workers until all 40 lakh BJP workers in the state were pressed into action.
Another crucial aspect of the BJP’s strategy was to ensure that each worker and his/her family cast the ballot by 10 am, before the worker could set out to get voters to polling centres.
The idea behind this — each vote counts — was prompted by Rajasthan Congress leader C.P. Joshi’s loss to BJP’s Kalyan Singh Chouhan in Nathdwara seat in 2008 by one vote.
“C.P. Joshi lost by one vote as his wife and driver could not vote. We did not want this to happen, hence the first priority was getting workers to vote themselves before they get other voters out,” said a senior state BJP leader.
Not long after returning to power in the state in 2020, the BJP launched a drive to consolidate the data of 40 lakh workers on its digital app ‘Sangathan’. The digital push provided leaders with a consolidated database of 40 lakh workers with their designation and mobile numbers.
In 2021, the Madhya Pradesh BJP launched the ‘booth vistarak’ programme under which a booth adhyaksh (chairperson) was appointed for each of the state’s 64,523 booths. The appointees were also issued an identity card as a reaffirmation of their position within the organisation.
Besides the booth adhyaksh, the BJP also appointed ‘ardha-panna pramukhs’. Earlier, each booth adhyaksh was given a voter list with 60 names but the appointment of ‘ardha-panna pramukhs’ helped the party divide these 60 names among two workers.
According to state BJP leaders, only about 50 to 60 percent of registered party workers are verified on average, but in MP, the booth vistarak programme helped the party verify about 95-96 percent of its registered booth workers.
According to state BJP president V.D. Sharma, ‘Sampada’ identity cards were given to booth adhyaksh and others on the ground. “It enabled them to effectively implement the 15-point agenda laid out by Amit Shah ji,” he told ThePrint.
Further, lists containing the names of beneficiaries of all central and state government schemes including PM Awas Yojana and Ladli Behna Yojana were circulated among workers. To top it off, the party identified local influential community leaders and women’s groups and persuaded them to reach out to voters in each booth.
According to BJP Madhya Pradesh secretary Rajneesh Agrawal, each booth was classified into A, B and C depending on the party’s performance in the booth in the past four elections. A strategy was then devised to increase voter turnout in each booth by 10 percentage points, he added.
“It is nearly after two decades that BJP has managed to increase its vote share by 7 percentage points to 48.55 percent. It is a phenomenal victory and there are at least 101 seats on which we won over 50 percent of the votes. Increasing the vote share is a long-drawn process and culmination of nearly three years of consistent effort,” said Aggarwal.
Out with the old, in with the new
Differences among senior state BJP leaders and the cadre, especially elderly workers, was another major challenge for the party.
To that effect, the state BJP unit also took it upon themselves to weed out workers that were nearing their 60s and 70s. Age limits were set at 45 years for mandal heads and 55 years for district in-charges and general secretaries, who were then replaced with younger workers.
“We understood there was a risk in replacing elderly workers as it might snowball into strong resentment that could hurt the party and candidate who would be given a ticket, it was decided to hold programs so that they could speak their mind off and be pacified,” said a senior state BJP leader.
Toli baithaks (group sittings) were organised across the 230 assembly seats, the leader added.
Another state BJP functionary explained that “Saath khelenge, khaenge aur baithenge toh sab theek rahega” (all will be right if workers play, eat and sit together) was the central idea behind these initiatives. To put this strategy into action, week-long programmes were conducted at several booths to ensure differences among the cadre were ironed out.
During Navratri, one month before the elections, 10,500 Shakti Kendra were designated across the state for booth workers to meet. At these meetings, they were made to take an oath to work for the party and were given lists of voters who were also beneficiaries either of central or state schemes, and of first-time voters and those aged above 80.
Senior party leaders including Jaibhan Singh Pawaiya, Narendra Singh Tomar, Kailash Vijayvargiya and Prabhat Jha, among others, were tasked with reassuring elderly workers who may have felt sidelined by the party’s efforts to rope in younger karyakartas.
Similarly, state BJP general secretary Hitanand Sharma and others held one-on-one meetings with Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan and State BJP chief V.D. Sharma to hash out a list of candidates and workers both leaders were in agreement with. A list was then prepared and presented in joint meetings with all senior party leaders in attendance.
Similarly, Union Minister Bhupender Yadav was tasked with collecting feedback from all BJP MPs and MLAs from the state on a final list of candidates.
For leaders whom the state unit failed to pacify, Union Home Minister Amit Shah met over a three-day period in the run-up to the polls.
BJP leaders from other states roped in
Another key strategy enforced by the BJP’s central team across all five states involved roping in MLAs and senior leaders from Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat and Maharashtra to take charge of political management.
Between 20 and 27 August, close to 230 MLAs from Gujarat and other states were appointed to oversee each of Madhya Pradesh’s 230 assembly seats over a period of one week. The legislators from Gujarat were asked to fine-tune mandal committees, beneficiary outreach, social media and the functioning of morchas in each assembly constituency.
This was followed by senior BJP leaders including Brajesh Pathak, medical education minister in the Yogi Adityanath-led BJP government in Uttar Pradesh, each being given the charge of 10 different divisions or sambhags.
Simultaneously, leaders such as Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, Sushil Modi, C.T. Ravi and J.P.S. Rathore, among others, were made in-charge of various districts — Khandwa, Harda, Jabalpur and Bhopal, respectively.
Party leaders also identified 89 assembly seats, apart from the aspirational seats they previously lost, where they felt the party needed to improve its electoral performance.
About 100 weak booths were identified in each of these 89 constituencies where the voting percentage in favour of the BJP had been poor in the last three elections, including the 2019 general election.
In these constituencies, the party mounted a three-pronged outreach programme involving Jan Abhiyaan Parishads, a network of self-help groups for women and a Panchayats Extension to Scheduled Areas Act (PESA) mobiliser to help spread awareness about government schemes.
“In many booths voters increased and correspondingly the target voters set for the booth was also increased. In a bid to mobilise these voters, beyond the booth workers, an outreach through women of self-help groups, and PESA committees were formed,” said a senior state BJP leader.
As many as 85 seats including Bhitarwar, held by Congress’ Laxman Yadav since 2008, or Deori, held by Congress’ Harsh Yadav since 2013, were identified and regularly monitored for a whole month by Union Minister Bhupender Yadav and state BJP general secretary Hitanand Sharma.
“Every morning between 9 am and 10 am feedback was sought from booth workers to better understand the outreach to voters,” said another state BJP leader who did not wish to be named.
Besides classifying each booth into A, B and C categories, voters in each booth were divided into subcategories depending on which caste group they were a part of or which scheme they benefited from.
“Even though there were schemes like Ladli Behna Yojana that were creating a positive impact on the voters, to make sure they get out to the booths and vote is something that the workers had to ensure,” said another senior state BJP leader.
State BJP president V.D. Sharma has already announced the party’s strategy for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls: identify segments where the party fell short of its target of 51 percent of total votes polled, and get to work.
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)