At a glance you would be deceived into believing that you have just walked into the office of some super efficient tour operator. There are maps of every kind — train route maps, air-route maps, maps of helipads and political maps, and then there are the people who know these maps to the minutest of details. But don't be surprised, for these men are part of the 10-man team in the BJP party office's logistics department. And the responsibility on their shoulders is enormous, for when on Tuesday, 24 national leaders and 22 state leaders of the party went on a campaign across the 73 Assembly constituencies going into the polls in the first phase on December 11, it was these 10 they relied on. Pankaj Shukla is one of the prominent members of the team. Switching between last minute calls and leafing through the itinerary of leaders, he says breathlessly, “The planning has been going on for a month. For the past five days it has been simply round the clock. It is a logistics exercise of gigantic proportions.” Another member of the team says, “Everything has to be perfect. From food preferences, to the vehicle, the place where the leaders will take rest, time and distance calculation of destinations, nothing should go wrong. With names like Rajnath Singh and Arun Jaitely even a small blip, and the ripples will reach Narendrabhai.” A month back, these men began their work by sketching a broad picture of the entire set up, identifying places and constituencies for the meetings, intimating respective district and taluka heads, and drawing up a list of national and state leaders across the party spectrum, from hardcore politicians like Rajnath Singh, Sushma Sawraj, Arjun Munda to Smriti Irani and Navjot Sidhu. Finally, the list was sent to the national office at Delhi. But, the last 15 days were spent fixing the itineraries of the leaders. According to Shukla, the logistics cell is divided into an aviation wing, a VIP protocol wing and a vehicle wing. As he says, “Every leader's welcoming party will consist of a set number of workers, a set number of vehicles in the convoy and minute to minute co-ordination with the district units, and all of this has been taken care of.” He said between five to seven private airplanes and choppers have been deployed to ferry the leaders across the state.
