BJP faces poll preparation debacle

The state BJP, which is on the back foot for not being able to rattle the coalition government, is suffering a double whammy.

In its efforts to poach the Congress and the JD(S) MLAs, the party has not been able focus on its preparation for the Lok Sabha polls.

The BJP was the first to commence its groundwork as early as November last year and also fine-tune its micromanagement strategy for this year’s big fight.

Then came the efforts by senior party leaders to poach Congress and JD(S) legislators to rattle the coalition government.

The BJP did manage to get the support of seven to eight MLAs and was even planning to defeat the Finance bill (budget) when it came up for consideration in the Assembly.

However, in an anticlimax for the BJP, five MLAs who were said to be staying in a hotel in Mumbai, turned up for the Legislature session on Wednesday, the day the government had listed the Finance bill for discussion in the House.

The party is now trying to revitalise itself for the Lok Sabha polls. According to sources, the party will start by strengthening its ‘Shakti Kendras’, a cluster of four to five polling booths, by appointing office-bearers, who will play the role of micro-level election managers for the party. Each Shakti Kendra will have a social media in-charge, a legal expert, and a media in-charge, among others, as its office-bearers.

Five to six divisional conventions of the office-bearers will be held in February and March. The BJP also plans to revive the 19-point formula for the party set by the party's national president Amit Shah ahead of the Assembly polls to strengthen its grassroots-level organisation.

These include forming booth committees, page pramukhs, where each worker is given the responsibility of a page in the electoral rolls, carrying out social media work, creation of WhatsApp groups, gain feedback from people in constituency, among others.