The BJP’s Bihar unit is preparing to face Assembly polls which, under the pre-COVID19 calender, were scheduled to be held in October-November.
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Senior BJP office-bearers told The Hindu that “apart from the relief work” necessitated due to COVID-19 pandemic, the party was slowly completing some of the organisational requirements to face polls. “The most basic building block of the organisational work is by completing our booth level network. We have a total of 72,727 booths and we are in the process of completing our exercise in constituting them,” said a senior State-level office- bearer. Party chief Dr. Sanjay Jaiswal has been regularly holding video meetings on the issue.
The party, he said, was operating on the saptarishi principle, that is, a seven-member booth committee in each booth, with a chief, a deputy chief, compulsory representation of women, Scheduled Castes and Most Backward Community members in the group.
“The exercise for completing the constitution of our mandal level committees, around 1099, is complete, and below that are our ‘shakti kendras’ [just above booth level], around 9547, which are also almost done,” he said. Office-bearers in charge of various Assembly seats have been registering their lists with names and numbers of those on the ‘saptarishi’ and other committees.
When asked about the poll prospects, he said the party was, like others, in the dark about it. “Whenever it happens, however, our organisational machinery will be ready for it.” There were still areas where it was difficult to form a full booth committee, but that the party was persisting.
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He dismissed suggestions that the party was concentrating on poll preparedness while the country was facing a pandemic plus the humanitarian situation with regard to the movement of inter-State migrants.
“At least 90% of our workers are involved in relief work, while the rest are engaged in organisational work. If you bother to get in touch with our MLAs, you will see that they and other workers have been actively involved in making sure quarantine centres etc are set up and are in good order. We have to report daily to party president J.P. Naddaji on the relief work that has been done, including photographs of quarantine centres etc. We have received over 20 lakh inter-State workers who belong to Bihar so far,” he said.
While the dates of polls are uncertain, BJP seems to be the first off the block on preparedness.
