With general elections just two years away, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has commenced a ‘pravas’ campaign to strengthen its hold over 144 Lok Sabha constituencies across the country.
The party has designated a Union minister and a ‘pravas’ minister for a cluster of constituencies. The cluster in-charge will monitor the tasks given to the ‘pravas’ minister for the next 18 months. With an eye on the 2024 polls, the ministers will also have to visit the constituencies regularly.
What will BJP achieve from ‘pravas’ campaign?
The aim is to collate electorally important information — both Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha-wise — for all 144 Lok Sabha seats.
The ministers need to undertake activities to strengthen the organisation from Parliament to booth level. The need is to identify critical issues and political factors for the party and prepare for strengthening these 144 Lok Sabha seats.
Sample this — a Union minister visiting a Lok Sabha constituency as its ‘pravas’ minister is working on electoral data according to assembly segment to cull out details like present MP, party and total number of BJP and opposition MLAs. Data as late as 2009 has been collated for general elections.
Apart from this, details of the constituency — geography, political and administrative features, religion, caste, inclination of voters and the reason behind it — have been worked out. Also part of the preparation is details about the principal occupation and trade of the constituency and the region as well as lowdown on every party, its top leader and their influence in the community.
Efforts will also be made to understand the standing of various parties, perception of an MP in his/her constituency as well as that of the BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and expected outcomes. A list of aspirants and contenders for the seat, along with current issues plaguing the area and actionable suggestions, will also be included.
Committees on three levels
The BJP has formed three committees at different levels to ensure effective implementation of the allocated tasks to sail to victory in 2024.
The central committee will have central leaders supervising the tasks and preparing the campaign plan, apart from briefing Lok Sabha in-charges and appointing cluster in-charges. The state committee will have in-charges at the state level for overall coordination and to ensure the involvement of senior leaders of the state in parliamentary constituencies. The cluster committee has a Union minister in charge who will work to link the central and state teams. The responsibility also includes formation of an actionable plan for the 144 Lok Sabha constituencies and converting them into winnable seats.
The Plan
Each minister should spend three days, including one night, in the constituency. Tasks to be performed in the three days include meetings with core committee of Lok Sabha members, district office bearers and mandal presidents; ‘tiffin baithak’ with morcha office-bearers; holding programmes for beneficiaries; meeting organisations with the same ideology as that of the BJP; meeting members since the Jan Sangh times and organising photo sessions with the families to convince them to actively work for the BJP; visiting temples, melas or places of cultural and historical significance as well as houses of Padma, Arjuna and gallantry awardees. This can be followed by giving exclusive interviews.
Day 2 of ‘pravas’ includes meetings with sarpanchs and district panchayat members, intellectuals or influencers, cooperatives, members of social media and IT wings and youth; visit to ‘Vikas Teerth’; interactions with first-time voters and meetings with government employees. It also includes identification of three government schemes in the constituencies, three local development works by the Centre and three issues that can be solved by the Union government.
Activities on the third day include participation in ‘Azaadi ka Amrit Mahotsav’; luncheon meetings with families of weaker communities; interactions with families of “vulnerable people” such as hawkers, acid attack victims who are not BJP ‘karyakartas’; Panna Pravas; tour of important villages and interactions with influential voters.
Tasks to accomplish
The following are the tasks that the party aims to achieve through its ‘pravas’ initiative:
· Make extensive plans for each Lok Sabha constituency on the basis of SWOT analysis.
· Identify administrative issues and get them resolved.
· Connect voters, identify the specially abled and reach out to them with central government schemes dedicated to them.
· Identify Sashastra Bal and migrants, new voters and women.
· Contact beneficiaries to encourage them to become members of BJP.
· Utilise social media and form WhatsApp groups till the booth-level. Get Union ministers, Mahila Morcha to volunteer in local works like cleaning lakes, planting saplings or taking out ‘prabhat pheri’.
Responsibilities Divided
The names of cluster in-charges have also been finalised by the BJP. While Union minister Piyush Goyal will lead in Gujarat, Sarbanand Sonowal will be the ‘pravas’ minister. For Telangana, Union minister Pralhad Joshi is the cluster in-charge, aided by ‘pravas’ minister Jyotiraditya Scindia. Scindia is also ‘pravas’ in-charge for West Bengal where the cluster in-charge is Union minister Dharmendra Pradhan.
Union minister Anurag Thakur is cluster in-charge for Maharastra’s four Lok Sabha constituencies — Palghar, Kalyan, Mumbai South Central and Mumbai South. This central team will be assisted by four office-bearers of Maharashtra BJP.
Union minister Bhupendra Yadav, too, is cluster in-charge for four LS constituencies in Maharashtra — Buldhana, Chandrapoor, Hingoli and Aurangabad — which will have ‘pravas’ minister in Yadav, Union minister Hardeep Singh Puri, and Shantanu Thakur.
In Uttar Pradesh, Union minister Narendra Singh Tomar has been made cluster in-charge of four constituencies, while he will be ‘pravas’ minister for two — Rae Bareli and Ambedkar Nagar. Union minister Jitendra Singh will be looking after a cluster of four Lok Sabha constituencies in UP, namely Moradabad, Sambhal, Amroha and Mainpuri.
Union Health minister Mansukh Mandaviya is cluster in-charge of three constituencies of Punjab — Sangrur, Patiala and Ludhiana. He will be cluster in-charge of Mandi in Himachal Pradesh.
For four constituencies in five clusters each of West Bengal, BJP has appointed Dharmendra Pradhan, Smriti Irani, Pratima Bhoumik, Virendra kumar and Pankaj Chaudhary as cluster in-charge.
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