BJP spokesman says tea politics key part of ‘scientific campaign’

GANDHINAGAR: BJP leaders fanned across Gujarat on Sunday listening to the PM’s ‘Mann ki Baat’ radio programme, marking the beginning of the campaign blitzkrieg for the assembly election.

The outreach exercise, a meticulously planned one at that, is a part of a “scientific campaign”, as explained by party spokesperson Jagdish Bhavsar. And here lies the key to the formidable election machinery that the saffron party has built over the years.

Speaking to ET, Bhavsar said the mobilisation worked at three tiers, beginning with the panna pramukh or the page president. “First, the panna pramukhs were mobilised; then the booth pramukhs (booth presidents) and the shakti kendra pramukhs,” Bhavsar said. Leaders led by party chief Amit Shah also carried out door-to-door campaign between November 7 and 12 under a Sampark Abhiyan, he added.

“We have built up a campaign on strong ground connect and not on mere perception,” Bhavsar said, adding that the party had been constantly analysing the feedback from the ground and working on that.

This micro-management of constituencies has been the hallmark of BJP’s election mechanism. The Citizens for Accountable Governance (CAG), an organisation led by Prashant Kishor, had played a pivotal role in such analysis ahead of the 2014 parliamentary election.

Analytics play a key part in BJP’s strategy, Bhavsar said. “When our parliamentary board meets, it has all the data analysed before it, which reaches from the grassroots level.”