Eye on 2024 Lok Sabha polls, BJP kick-starts booth strengthening campaign

PTI, May 25, 2022, 7:43 PM IST

With an eye on the 2024 parliamentary elections, the BJP kick-started a week-long campaign on Wednesday to strengthen the organisation and boost outreach activities in around 74,000 electoral booths across the country where it is relatively weak.

BJP president J P Nadda on Wednesday addressed a ‘Booth Empowerment Campaign’ event at the party headquarters here, the party said in a tweet.

The meeting was attended by several Union ministers and leaders from across the country.

The campaign will continue till May 31.

To steer the campaign, the BJP has formed a committee chaired by party vice president Baijayant Panda. Party vice president Dilip Ghosh, general secretary CT Ravi, and the party’s Scheduled Caste (SC) Morcha head Lal Singh Arya are its members.

The party has identified around 74,000 booths across the country that are to be strengthened under the campaign.

All party MPs have been asked to strengthen 100 weak booths in their respective constituencies and a 30-member team will be formed for the purpose, party sources said.

Similarly, party MLAs have been given the task of strengthening 10 weaker booths in their constituencies, sources said.

The BJP’s Rajya Sabha MPs have been given the responsibility of strengthening polling booths in those Lok Sabha constituencies where the party lost, sources said.

The weaker booths have been identified on the basis of the results of the 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha elections and state assembly polls, they said.

These booths have been divided into various categories on the basis of demography, organisational strength and other aspects, they said.

As part of this campaign, BJP leaders will have to form a team, train them and then carry out outreach activities in the area that comes under these weaker polling booths, sources said, adding that special focus will be on beneficiaries of various government schemes.

The broader idea behind this exercise is to expand the BJP’s footprint and increase its tally in the next Lok Sabha elections, they said.

A similar exercise was initiated by the BJP in 2016 and the party had identified around 115 constituencies in six states — Odisha, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Kerala — and the Northeast. The party had never been able to win these constituencies till that time.

Party leaders believe as a result of this exercise, the BJP improved its position substantially in Odisha and West Bengal and increased its tally in 2019 Lok Sabha polls.