New Delhi: “Gaon ke gaon khaali karane hai (village after village has to be emptied)” — this is the task Union Home Minister Amit Shah has given BJP workers for this year’s Lok Sabha election, referring to the need to induct Congress workers to strengthen the BJP’s footprint across states.
Shah gave the instruction Thursday while addressing a select group of 200 BJP leaders in a closed-door cluster review meeting for three Lok Sabha constituencies — Kanker, Bastar and Mahasamund — in Chhattisgarh.
According to party leaders present at the meeting held in Kondagaon, Shah asked them to make additions to the BJP vote-share in every booth, highlighting that this was possible only if party karyakartas ensured that no Congress worker was left in any village and all had joined the BJP. He also advised the leaders to forget any past bitterness and ensure their induction.
“The home minister said that induction of Congress workers should start in every booth and village. Every leader (worker) has a few hundred to thousand voters in his support as well as three-four family members. Not just big leaders but small workers of the Congress should also not be left in villages. He also said that only a patta (BJP sash) is required for joining, and be it a mukhiya, sarpanch or those who lost elections at panchayat level — all should be in the BJP,” a party leader present at the meeting told ThePrint.
Shah, who is touring several states to oversee the BJP’s poll preparedness at the ground level and to fine-tune the party organisation, further assured the gathering that they should “not worry” about Congress workers joining the party in droves, in an attempt to address the growing concern among BJP karyakartas that the party was opening its door for mass migration of Congressmen.
A BJP functionary said: “Shah advised that we should leave behind old animosities and said that there are no permanent enemies in politics. He said we should not worry about what will happen to the original cadre workers. ‘Many of you are yet to get anything despite working many years, so how will new workers get anything? Only those who work for the party and its ideology for the long term will get anything, so there is no need to be sacred’, he said.”
At the meeting, Shah asked the leaders a number of questions about things like opening of a Lok Sabha office in every assembly constituency, and formation of booth committee, core committee and management committee for every seat.
Unlike the Bikaner poll review meeting earlier this week, where three Rajasthan ministers got a dressing down from the home minister, Shah did not haul up any leaders at the Chhattisgarh meeting.
But, BJP sources told ThePrint, Shah in a subtle way expressed unhappiness over preparedness at the ground level.
Shah, according to the source, said, “I take at least 10 meetings in a day and am visiting here (Chhattisgarh) from Delhi to take part in a cluster review meeting. Then you too should complete the assigned work as early as possible.”
A second party functionary present at the meeting said that “many of the Lok Sabha offices have not yet been opened at the constituency level and there is lack of preparation. Shah did not name any particular leader, but his message was loud and clear when he gave his own example”.
The BJP last year wrested Chhattisgarh from the Congress, winning 54 of 90 seats in the assembly.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha election, the party had won nine of 11 seats in the state while two went to the Congress. In tribal-dominated Bastar, the BJP lost by a margin of around 38,000 votes, while its margin of victory in Kanker was less than 10,000. It lost the Korba seat too.
Also Read: With its betrayal in Bastar, Congress has abandoned adivasi cause — one that gave it power
‘Shah gave examples from his own career’
Speaking to ThePrint, an MLA present at the meeting said: “Shah gave two examples from his own career and asked workers to take inspiration from them.”
“While elaborating on the organisational work that has to be undertaken at the booth level, Shah said that wall writing is an important way to involve party workers,” the MLA added.
“During his Gujarat days, Shah said he himself had made 10,000 kamal (lotus, BJP poll symbol) on walls. ‘If you hand over this work to a painter, there will be no involvement of party workers, but if you write on the wall yourself, more workers will get involved and will also be encouraged to get involved in party work,’ Shah advised,” according to the MLA.
Soon after Thursday’s meeting, the cluster in-charge for the three Chhattisgarh constituencies decided to hold a wall painting campaign where the slogan of ‘Abki Bar, 400 Paar’ along with a photo of Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be painted on walls on the day when BJP workers assemble to listen to Modi’s Maan ki Baat radio address, the MLA said.
In another example, Shah said that due to his busy schedule, he often did not get a chance to visit his constituency. But, he added that he had made such a system in his constituency that people didn’t have to travel anywhere to get their problems addressed. They got a solution at the local level only, as people were assigned to address problems, the MLA told ThePrint.
“Shah said that he got every information about his constituency without even visiting, whereas now it was a common complaint that public representatives were not visiting their constituencies after winning elections. To address the situation, he advised that MLAs should visit at least 10 villages in a month,” the MLA added.
For the BJP’s expansion at the booth level, party sources said, Shah stressed that besides visiting key voters, organising beneficiary conferences, Viksit Bharat Sankalp Yatra conferences, verifying page in-charges and replacing inactive booth presidents, tolis (groups) of 10 bikers should be formed at every booth to generate a buzz among workers about the BJP’s Lok Sabha poll campaign.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
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