BJP banks on effective poll management in MP

On the eve of polling in Madhya Pradesh, the ruling BJP strategists were busy fine-tuning party president Amit Shah’s formula.

Shah's strategy is to ensure a minimum of 10 agents in each of the 65,000-odd polling booths spread across 230 Assembly seats in the state.

The booths which the party has classified as 'weak', the number of agents could go up to 30, sources in the BJP said.

The sources said that the party is confident of beating the anti-incumbency factor by an effective booth management as it did in the Gujarat Assembly election.

The Congress is also gearing up to match the number of booth agents of its main opponent.

However, the BJP’s superior organisational strength coupled with active support of the RSS is a cause of worry for the Congress, party insiders said.

A senior Congress leader admitted that the party might not have as many workers to man the booths as the BJP is claiming to deploy but “ we are confident that voters have already made up their mind to oust the Shivraj government and they will not be swayed by the BJP’s show of strength in the booths”.

BJP’s strategists have planned to set up control rooms at three levels— district, divisional and state.

These control rooms will send reports of voting trends and workers’ movements to the state office every minute.

While strategists were busy chalking out plans for effective booth management, candidates and their supporters conducted door-to-door contacts with voters.

A total of 5.49 crore voters are eligible to exercise their franchise in the polling slated on Wednesday in which a total of 2,899 candidates are in fray.

The BJP has fielded candidates in all 230 seats while the Congress is contesting in 229 seat and has left one seat for Sharad Yadav’s Loktantrik Janata Dal.

The Bahujan Samaj Party is contesting on 227, Samajwadi Party on 51, Aam Adami Party on 208 and fledgling SAPAKS Samaj Party on 109 seats.

The most high-profile election is in Budni seat where Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chuhan is pitted against former PCC president Arun Yadav.

The high-octane election campaign, packed with personal attacks, bitter allegations and tall promises, came to an end in Madhya Pradesh on Monday.

The Election Commission of India has deployed 1.80 lakh police personnel and three lakh government staff on poll duty, including 4,500 women staff.