LUCKNOW Ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is ready with a mega voter awareness campaign in Uttar Pradesh (UP), one that is also a mega outreach drive.
The underlying aim of the campaign is to increase the party’s voter base in nearly 1.63 lakh booths where the party claims presence in the most populous state, key to the BJP’s bid for a record third consecutive stint at the Centre.
The party plans to increase the number of voters in each booth by at least 100, which would mean l.63 crore additional voters.
The BJP, which is the only party to undertake such an organised and large- scale voter awareness campaign, also plans to hold similar camps in universities and degree colleges, with the aim of enlisting first-time voters.
“The awareness drive is specially focused on youth who will turn 18 years of age by January 1, 2024,” UP BJP general secretary (organisation) Dharampal Singh has been telling cadres at several meetings that have been held on the issue.
During his meetings with the party cadre, Singh stressed on enlisting new voters and spoke of the need to check fake/bogus voters and ensure that voter lists were updated accordingly. The BJP is also telling its cadres to register voters by getting voter registration ‘Form 6’ (meant for inclusion of new voters) filled out online and submitted with the election commission.
{{/usCountry}}During his meetings with the party cadre, Singh stressed on enlisting new voters and spoke of the need to check fake/bogus voters and ensure that voter lists were updated accordingly. The BJP is also telling its cadres to register voters by getting voter registration ‘Form 6’ (meant for inclusion of new voters) filled out online and submitted with the election commission.
{{/usCountry}}During polls, the same cadres tasked with voter awareness would be deployed for voter mobilisation to up the voter turnout in the crucial polls.
“In a democracy, people’s participation is important and as a responsible political party, we all are part of the engagement,” said Abhijat Mishra, UP BJP secretary. The other aspect of the exercise is that such campaigns help in keeping cadres engaged.
“From voter connect to profiling a constituency and its voting patterns, the entire exercise is a multi-pronged one. Must say that BJP always thinks of some novel strategy to connect with voters and it’s not our fault if no other party could think so proactively,” a BJP leader admitted. This BJP leader recalled how the party deployed ‘panna pramukh’ (head of a page on the voters’ list) and all senior leaders during the elections.
As ‘panna pramukh’, each BJP leader - even chief minister Yogi Adityanath and deputy CMs Keshav Prasad Maurya and Brajesh Pathak - is tasked with the responsibility of contacting voters on the page they are assigned with.