A four-member panel led by national vice-president Baijayant Panda has identified 73,000 polling booths where the BJP is weak and provided suggestions on how to strengthen the party’s positions in these areas
The BJP high command has set a target of winning even more seats than the 303 Lok Sabha seats it won in 2019. AFP
There are two years more for the Lok Sabha elections, but it seems that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is leaving nothing up to chance and already gearing up for the next parliamentary polls.
The saffron party, in its aim to achieve ‘Mission 2024’ has already constituted a ‘Weak Booth Committee’ team. The purpose of this team: to expand BJP’s presence wherever it is weak.
Here’s what we know so far about BJP’s Mission 2024 and how it plans on capturing the votes in the upcoming elections, guaranteeing another ‘Modi Sarkar’.
Weak Booth Committee
The BJP’s Weak Booth Committee is made up of four membes — BJP national vice-presidents Baijayant Panda and Dilip Ghosh, national general secretary CT Ravi, and Lal Singh Arya, national president of the party’s Scheduled Caste Morcha (wing).
The four-member team has identified 73,000 polling booths where the BJP is weak and provided suggestions on how to strengthen the party’s positions at these areas.
As per reported information, the majority of these booths are in the southern and eastern states, such as West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, and Tamil Nadu.
News agency PTI reported that the booths had been identified on the basis of 2014 and 2019 general elections.
The broader idea is to substantially increase the party’s vote share on these booths in 2024 general elections.
The booths have been divided into various categories on the basis of demography, organisational strength and other aspects.
A member of the team was quoted as telling Indian Express, “We have identified 73,600-plus booths where the plan will be rolled out. Basically the aim is to strengthen the booths in the constituencies where the party has already won to retain them and to make more strongholds, we will be working on 100 more Lok Sabha seats where the party has not won. The mission is to maximise the party’s reach and electoral wins.”
BJP’s national vice president and member of the Weak Booth Committe told ANI: “With this initiative, we are hopeful of getting the results we want in the upcoming 2024 elections.”
Training cadres to hold dialogues
Besides the weak booth committee, the BJP has announced that it would train its cadres to ensure regular dialogue with villagers and the delivery of various welfare schemes to the poor, especially in the rural areas.
As per a Hindustan Times report, the training is to ensure “100 per cent saturation of government (welfare) schemes.”
Earlier too, the BJP top brass had asked its ministers to hold monthly dinner meetings with party MPs and update them about the schemes.
Effect of 2022 on 2024?
Interestingly, the BJP’s work for the 2024 polls comes a month after Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed a parliamentary party meeting, during which he said Assembly election results would have a bearing on the 2024 general elections.
“After the 2019 polls, some political pundits had said that the 2017 poll results had decided the 2019 outcome. I think they will say that the 2022 poll verdict decided the outcome of 2024 elections,” Prime Minister Modi had said at the time.
In the 2022 five-state Assembly elections that recently concluded, the BJP fared very well, winning four of the five states.
The BJP’s win in Uttar Pradesh was most significant as BJP became the first party since 1985 to win a second straight term in the country’s most populous state.
It also retained power in Uttarakhand, Manipur and Goa.
Past vs future performance
In 2019, the BJP stormed back to power by winning 303 seats on its own and emerged as the single largest party in the country. Along with its allies, the BJP won 352 seats out of the 542 Parliamentary seats.
The Congress suffered a humiliating defeat by securing just 52 of the 542 seats.
Among the 29 states and seven Union Territories, the BJP with its allies under NDA made a clean sweep in Arunachal Pradesh, Chandigarh, Gujarat, Delhi, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Puducherry, Rajasthan and Uttarakhand. In the north-central belt of the country, NDA made an immense presence by winning a significant amount of seats in Bihar, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh.
It has been reported that for 2024, the party high command has set a target of winning even more seats than the 303 Lok Sabha seats it won in 2019.
With inputs from agencies
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