BJP readies booth-level blueprint for better reach, results in 2024 LS polls
Rolling out a blueprint of the party’s strategy for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, a team of senior BJP leaders has identified around 74,000 booths across the country for strengthening hold in some, and to gain ground in others it has not been able to win so far.
The majority of these booths are in the southern and eastern states, sources said.
The four-member team headed by BJP vice-president Baijayant Panda has already worked on a strategy to cover all the booths spread across 2,300 Assembly constituencies where the party has an MP or an MLA while identifying more booths in 100 Lok Sabha constituencies that the BJP candidates could not win so far, sources said.
“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,” said a member of the team.
The team, also consisting of BJP general secretaries C T Ravi and Dilip Ghosh and party’s Scheduled Castes (SC) cell head Lal Singh Arya, is expected to tour across the country to roll out their strategies in the coming three months. The committee met on Monday at the party headquarters. Once the blueprint is ready, BJP national president J P Nadda is expected to launch the mission officially, which is likely to be next week.
“The committee will be working with the party MPs and MLAs – 2,300 of them – across the country, state presidents and district presidents in the coming three months. “We have to ensure that the BJP does not lose any of the seats it has already won. There will be training sessions and frequent meetings for those in these booths,” said the leader.
Known for its elaborate election preparation much in advance, the BJP had identified around 115 constituencies as “new catchment area” in 2016 that the party had never been able to win ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. The party had worked in those constituencies in six states — Odisha, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Kerala — and the Northeast. Although the party could not make considerable gains in the southern states like Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala, the party had improved its position in Odisha and West Bengal in 2019 Lok Sabha polls. In Odisha, the party won eight seats, and bagged 18 from West Bengal. The party had only one of the 21 seats from Odisha and two of the 42 from West Bengal in the 16th Lok Sabha. In Telangana, it increased its tally from one to four in the last elections.
