15 days, 80,000 people added across UP: BJP claims great start to target of 370 extra voters per booth

In another BJP-ruled state, Uttarakhand, over 6,000 workers of the Congress, Samajwadi Party (SP), Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and Uttarakhand Kranti Dal (UKD) have joined the BJP so far at such “joining programmes”, party insiders said, adding that Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami and state party president Mahendra Bhatt would also attend such events from March 5.

Sources in the BJP said that those who are joining it through the Milan Samaroh events include booth-level Opposition parties’ workers, village pradhans, former zila panchayat functionaries, municipal corporators and rival candidates of the past Assembly and local body elections.

“We identified those workers who would put up a basta (a temporary stall set up by contesting candidates outside polling stations to help voters by informing them about their polling booths or providing them voter slips) for the SP, BSP and Congress in past elections. Also, those booth workers of these parties who have personal connect with voters of their localities. If they come with us, they will increase BJP votes on polling day,” said a BJP leader. In several districts, ration dealers, who influence voters at the local level, have also joined the BJP.

The UP BJP’s vice-president Braj Bahadur — who is also a member of the party’s state-level joining committee — said, “Milan Samaroh have been started in all the Assembly seats and over 88,000 people have joined the BJP so far. A thorough screening is done at the regional and district levels to ensure that people with clean image are inducted. We are careful that no such person should be inducted who can cause a damage to the party. Ground workers who have personal connect with three or four voters in their localities are joining the party.”

Bahadur said that teachers, leaders of different castes and communities, lawyers, among others, were being inducted into the BJP fold.

In some areas like Ghaziabad, those who have joined the BJP ranks are also office-bearers of local trader bodies, resident welfare associations, real estate brokers, retired government officers apart from workers of different rival parties.

In the SP first family’s home district Etawah, over 1,400 people including booth presidents, village pradhans and ration dealers have joined the BJP at Milan Samaroh events in different Assembly segments, the BJP claims, adding that 300 such people have been inducted in Jaswant Nagar, the constituency of senior SP leader and six-term MLA Shivpal Singh Yadav.

Bahadur said such BJP joining programmes will continue until the Lok Sabha elections. “The objective of these programmes is to bring booth level support of the Opposition to BJP. This will reduce our opponents on ground and increase BJP votes. Our goal is to win 370 more votes than the number of votes we secured in every polling booth in the previous elections,” he said, adding that several senior leaders or MLAs of the Opposition, including smaller parties, would switch to the BJP after not getting their party tickets for the upcoming polls.

Uttarakhand BJP general secretary Aditya Kothari said, “More than 6,000 people have joined the BJP so far in the state. Retired government officers and intellectuals besides workers of rival parties are joining BJP.”

At one such programme held recently at the state BJP headquarters in Dehradun, many workers of the Congress, SP, BSP and UKD were inducted, with the event marked with beating of drums and bursting of fire crackers. CM Dhami and Mahendra Bhatt will together travel to various Assembly constituencies beginning March 5 to participate in these events.