Surat/Gandhinagar: Last year, a woman whose family was below poverty line (BPL) in Surat’s Mota Varachha neighborhood needed an expensive surgery. Milan Jalavadia, a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) worker, recalls how they gave him a ‘Maa Amritam’ card – a Gujarat government Plan Under which medical and surgical care is provided to BPL families for serious ailments within 24 hours.
Jalavadia said it not only took care of the woman’s hospital expenses but also turned her and her family into committed BJP voters.
Jalavadia is the ‘Panna Pramukh’ of the BJP in Gujarat. The panna pramukh – the head of a page in the voter list – is a small component of the BJP’s much-touted grassroots network of booth heads, panna pramukhs and panna committees across the country, on whom the party is counting on for the upcoming Gujarat assembly election. ,
Through this network, the party micromanages voters, ensuring they come out to vote on election day.
And when it is not election time, these BJP soldiers run an almost parallel administration system. They bring government schemes to the doorsteps of beneficiaries, act as intermediaries for any work or problems that families in their jurisdiction may have with government officials, and passively campaign for the BJP. Live
“We have to keep up the dialogue with the voters all the time. I have to keep a watchful eye on what the people in my neighborhood need. If I am not available, I put a message on my booth’s WhatsApp group asking someone to help them. If someone from the BJP is catering to their needs, solving their issues, they are more likely to vote for us,” Jalavadia told ThePrint.
“When it’s not election time, it’s just half an hour’s work every day,” said Jalavadia, who works full-time with a garment trading business.
Election Polling for the 182-member Gujarat Assembly will be held in two phases on December 1 and 5. The counting of votes will take place on December 8.
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The world of BJP’s booth heads, panna heads
In Gujarat, the BJP claims to have an army of 80-82 lakh people, whose names, contact details, identities and addresses are registered with the party and verified at multiple levels through the year to fill any holes in the structure. have been done.
There is a head for each polling booth. Under booth chiefs, there is a chief for each page or party’s first point of contact with voters at the booth level – the page chief. Each page has about 30-35 voters and the panna pramukh is responsible for ensuring that they are loyal to the BJP, and converting them into one if they are not already voters of the BJP.
The Panna Pramukh is also named on the page of voters he is responsible for, and as a result, 30-35 voters on his page – usually from five or six families – are his neighbors.
There is a Panna committee under the Panna chief, a concept unique to the Gujarat BJP for now, except for a few sporadic local elections in other states. Panna committees consist of one voter from each of these five or six families.
Gandhinagar BJP corporator and city panna pramukh Raju Patel said, “So, effectively, we can claim to have a BJP interlocutor in every family.”
“I have been living in this area for many years and most of the voters of my page have been living near me for at least five to 10 years. So, we already have social connections. We attend each other’s family functions, weddings and celebrate festivals together. It is easy for me to convey the message of BJP to these people.
Kamlesh Banker, another BJP panna pramukh of Gandhinagar, opened the booklet from booth number 19 to page number 16 and quickly ticked around five names. “These are the members I have carefully selected for my page committee,” he told ThePrint. “I made sure they are influential within their families, they are not government employees, they are either young and very politically inclined or old and have more time on their hands,” said Banker, who is a BJP leader. There is also the president of the ward in Gandhinagar.
“Earlier, one person, the panna pramukh, used to be responsible for 30 people. Now with the Panna Samiti model, we have one person responsible for every five or six voters and as the page head, the Panna Samiti members – one from each family on our page – work on our page to reach out to all the voters on our page. are primary contacts,” he said.
Both Patel and Banker give credit to BJP’s landslide victory Gandhinagar Municipal Corporation elections in 2021When in this grid of Panna committees the party improved from its previous 16 to 41.
Out of total 44 seats in Gandhinagar Municipal Corporation, Congress won only two seats while Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) got one seat.
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‘Loorate non-BJP voters with services’
This complex organizational system works seamlessly in BJP strongholds, but there are areas where the party does not have committed voters or where party members know that voters do not vote based on ideology. But, with this level of micromanagement, the party also knows who these voters are by name.
“We pay extra attention to these voters,” said Nishit Patel, another panna pramukh from Surat’s Mota Varachha area, who works in a textile business. He said, ‘There is no point in persuading such voters with words. They are going to pass it off as lip service. Our best bet is to woo them with our services.
Patel said, if the booth-level manpower is constantly ensuring that such “floating voters” or “non-BJP voters” are getting the benefits of government schemes, if they do not face any red-tapism in processes like getting Aadhaar cards or passport verification, over time, “they will automatically convert into BJP voters.”
The party hopes that the booth level workers will put a lot of emphasis on the first time voters.
Sanket Panchsara, a young doctor, Gandhinagar corporator and one of the BJP’s panna pramukhs, said, “If we have any 16-17-year-old youth on our page, we help them with all the paperwork to get them registered as voters. We do. We become their first point of contact in the world of politics and they are more likely to trust us with their vote.
Patel of Mota Varachha said, in his area, many young students who aspire to study abroad apply for passports. “We try to accompany them personally for police verification. This helps us earn the trust of not only the youth concerned but his entire family,” he said.
Party leaders said Panna Pramukh also networks with people by holding local meetings and invites families to listen to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ‘Mann Ki Baat’ (on his election page).
The local MLAs meet the party’s booth-level cadre once a week and the local MPs visit them once a month.
Jalavadia said the legislator also tries to get booth workers to meet local government officials once every month. He said, “He tells zonal officers, a call from them (booth workers) is like a call from me.” “This way I can get the Maa Amritam card approved in 24 hours.”
(Editing by Anumeha Saxena)
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