For Target 2024, BJP has first set this goal: Why and where

The party last year kicked off its Lok Sabha Pravas Yojana, under which the party leaders including ministers have been entrusted with handling those “difficult” constituencies for the 2024 general elections, where the party had finished runner-up or third in the 2019 general elections or won with a slim margin.

In the initial phase of the Pravas Yojana, 144 such constituencies from across the country were identified, which have now been increased to 160.

Here is a look at the BJP’s strategy behind shortlisting 160 of the total 540 Lok Sabha constituencies for this programme.

Why 160 constituencies?

At a meeting of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Council of Ministers on May 25 last year, the BJP leadership unveiled the Lok Sabha Pravas Yojana. Each of the shortlisted constituencies would be part of a cluster for which a minister or senior party leader would be appointed as in-charge to strengthen the organisation and keep the workers motivated for various things – from keeping the booth-level activities going to influencing local personalities, to working social media including WhatsApp groups.

In the 2019 polls, the BJP had contested 436 seats, winning 303 of them. The party’s initial selection of 144 constituencies include the constituencies the party lost besides the seats where it just managed to squeeze through.

With this initial phase showing a “positive outcome”, the BJP leadership has now raised the tally of such seats to 160. Senior leaders handling the programme said the tally would be soon raised further to over 200.

BJP sources said the party has already sent one vistarak – a full-timer party volunteer appointed for short periods – each to the 160 identified constituencies, who will be stationed there till the completion of elections, working in tandem with the district party presidents. Each of them will be working in their respective constituencies as a coordinator to oversee the party’s electioneering down to the booth level.

Where are these constituencies located?

While the BJP’s focus remains on the southern and eastern states, where the party is yet to establish itself, such as West Bengal, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and Odisha, the list even includes the constituencies in its strongholds like Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.

In Maharashtra, the party has earmarked 16 constituencies including Baramati, a bastion of NCP chief Sharad Pawar. In Bengal, where the BJP won 18 seats, the list has 19 constituencies. Among the seats the party has picked up in Uttar Pradesh are the Gandhi family’s stronghold Raebareli, Ambedkar Nagar (a BSP bastion), Shrawasti (BJP lost it by a narrow margin to BSP), Lalganj (BSP), Moradabad (BJP lost to SP), Sambhal (a seat BJP could never win), Amroha, and Mainpuri (SP bastion).

The seats from Telangana on the list include Mehboob Nagar, where the BJP’s D K Aruna came second with more than 3.30 lakh votes in 2019, Nagar Kurnool (the BJP came third but garnered over 100,000 votes), and Nalgonda (the BJP came third).

Last week, the BJP leadership added four more constituencies to Bihar’s already-identified 10 constituencies, five more to Bengal’s 19 constituencies, three more in Maharashtra, while adding two each in UP and Punjab.

What are the leaders/ministers roped in for the Yojana expected to do?

According to BJP sources, the party leadership gave a 144-point programme sheet for the ministers at the May 25, 2022 meeting.

Under this action plan, each constituency is part of a cluster for which a leader will be in-charge. A three-tier committee – at central, local and district levels – would be in place to collect and prepare information on the delivery and implementation of various government welfare schemes. These ministers, using the local organisation, will have to prepare the character of the demography in each constituency – the caste distribution, economic status, the number of youth, women, poor etc. The information on local culture, festivals, political developments and personalities and even the number of youngsters who ride two-wheelers also have to be collected.

These committees would look into the booths and blocks where the party candidates’ performance was poor in the last few elections. These details along with suggestions on the basis of feedback from the local leadership would be submitted to the central leadership.

To strengthen the BJP’s social media presence, the committees would set up a Twitter handle and ensure at least 50,000 followers in each constituency. The committees are expected to reach out to college going girls, Self Help Groups (SHGs) and religious leaders and communities. The details of 12 central schemes would have to be communicated while drawing up a list of beneficiaries. There would be a social media team, a Lok Sabha coordinator, a social media coordinator and a full-timer to help the visiting minister.

While some of the Union ministers like Piyush Goyal, Dharmendra Pradhan, Bhupender Yadav, Narendra Singh Tomar, Giriraj Singh, Mansukh Mandaviya, Smriti Irani, Anurag Thakur, Sanjeev Balyan, Jitendra Singh, Mahendra Nath Pandey among others have been appointed the cluster in-charge, others have been given just constituencies.

Sources said there are 40 BJP clusters across the country. The ministers were given the task to spend at least 48 hours in the constituencies and prepare reports in a bid to find the route to victory by frequently visiting them. They were expected to do a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis of the party’s position in these seats and identify steps to improve its electoral prospects.

Every minister would have to visit six households including those of the party- affiliated ones, opponents and party workers, and remain in touch with them. They have to do at least six functions during each visit and would have to ensure that the party gets at least 20 new members in each booth.

To boost the organisational activities, Amit Shah will travel to 11 states this month itself. Shah is expected to visit Tripura on January 5 and Manipur and Nagaland on January 6. He would travel to Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand on January 7 and Andhra Pradesh on January 8. He would be in UP on January 16, in Bengal on January 17 and in Karnataka on January 28. The next day, he would be in Haryana and Punjab.

Has the BJP set up any monitoring mechanism for the Pravas Yojana?

While Shah is directly monitoring the programme, BJP president J P Nadda and party general secretary (organisation) B L Santhosh are also actively involved in this exercise. The ministers have been given 18 months to strengthen the party in these constituencies.

The first review meeting was held on September 6 last year in which Shah emphasised on the ministers taking up organisational work on priority.

According to Shah, while the party could win more than 65 per cent of the seats it contested last time, it should ensure that at least 30 per cent of the shortlisted “difficult seats” are won in the 2024 polls.

Is this the first time the BJP is undertaking such an exercise?

Not exactly. Ahead of the 2019 elections, the party had identified around 120 constituencies across seven states as its new “catchment areas” for its enhanced focus. These seats were from Odisha, Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and the Northeast. The BJP leadership’s assessment then was that the party would not be able to retain many seats in its strongholds, so it should focus on new regions.

The BJP improved its standing in Bengal, Odisha and the Northeast in the 2019 polls. The party won eight and 18 seats in Odisha and Bengal respectivey. It had won only one of Odisha’s 21 seats and two of Bengal’s

42 seats in the 2014 polls. In Telangana, it increased its tally from one to four in the 2019 polls.

The saffron dispensation’s push has however also been marked with some rows. Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan had questioned the intention of External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar’s Kerala visit as part of the BJP’s Pravas programme. During her visit to Telangana, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman reprimanded a disrict collector for being unable to provide her an answer to what was the Centre and the state’s share of rice supplied through fair price shops, drawing flak from the ruling TRS there.