Win booths to win polls, Modi tells workers

The prime minister declared that booth management was the topmost strategy to win the polls, and whoever won the booth could not lose the election

MUMBAI: After the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) discovered that discontent among party leaders and workers was one of the reasons for its defeat in the Lok Sabha elections, Prime Minister Narendra Modi held a virtual dialogue with party workers to boost their morale. He declared that booth management was the topmost strategy to win the polls, and whoever won the booth could not lose the election.

New Delhi, Nov 16 (ANI): Prime Minister Narendra Modi addresses the Hindustan Times Leadership Summit 2024, in New Delhi on Saturday. (ANI Photo) (DPR)

In the Saturday audio-conferencing called ‘Mera Booth Sabse Majboot’, Modi gave instructions to take out at least 25 processions in every booth area, and ensure that over half the voters cast their votes in the first three hours. He also directed workers to make at least 15 videos per booth of people who had benefited from central and state government schemes and circulate them before the polls.

Shashikant Palve, district vice-president from Ahmednagar, Lalita Kunvar district vice-president from Nashik and two booth pramukhs, Vijay Kamble and Vinod Kulkarni, participated in the interaction. Modi told them to instruct workers to visit voters’ houses, sit with them “to read their mind” and convince them how the BJP and Mahayuti government would be beneficial for them. He noted how when he was a booth-level worker in Gujarat, they would take out processions in societies and mohallas by beating thalis early in the morning, appealing to people to come out and vote.

Continuing his attack, Modi told Palve that to compare the performance of the Shinde-led Mahayuti government and the previous MVA government before voters—the Shinde government, according to him, had “done tremendous work and taken Maharashtra on the path of progress” while the MVA had halted all big projects, even the irrigation project in Palve’s area. Convince voters that only the BJP can make Maharashtra progress fast,” he said.

Modi also directed booth- and tehsil-level workers to reach out to voters who were uncertain about who to vote for and have a ‘sanvad’ (dialogue) than ‘vivad’ (argument) with them to ensure that their votes came to the BJP. He told workers to reach out to the middle class as well, which had always been “the focus of the BJP’s aspirations”, and said that the income-tax exemption slab was ₹2 lakh in 2014 and the BJP had increased it to ₹7 lakh. “Electricity bills have reduced because of the PM Suryaghar scheme,” he told BJP workers. “In the next five years, 75,000 new medical seats should be available. Use social media to say all this.”