LUCKNOW: Chief minister Yogi Adityanath is the `panna pramukh’ (in charge of a page in a voter list) for booth No 246 in the Gorakhhpur City Vidhan Sabha constituency, where he is registered as a voter himself.
Being the panna pramukh he will reach out to those voters who have their names on the same page with him. He will not be the only panna pramukh for that booth because the voter list may be long. Depending on the number of pages the voter list has, there will be one panna pramukh for every page.
In that case, a booth may have multiple panna pramukhs whose ultimate job will be to sway the voter in the party’s favour by telling them about the welfare schemes of the BJP government at the centre and in the state and other achievements that brought laurels for the country, nationally and internationally.
“If there are more than one party functionaries who have their names figuring on the same page of the voter list, the senior most will have the responsibility,” said a party functionary. A page of the voter list has about 60 names and that will add up to around 12 families.
Like chief minister Yogi Adityanath, every MP, MLA and office-bearer of the party will be a panna pramukh for the booth where he is registered as a voter. In Gorakhpur, former Union minister and MP Shiv Pratap Shukla, MLA Dr Radha Mohan Das Agrawal and mayor Sitaram Jaiswal are also the panna pramukhs for the booths where they are registered as voters.
At a time when most of the political parties in the state are trying to reach out to voters and it’s the lack of an organizational set-up that might make it a little difficult for them to do so, state BJP has its vast army of foot soldiers, elected people’s representatives and popular leaders of the national stature as its biggest strength. The party has a strength of 50 lakh `panna pramukh’ in a state which has around 1.6 lakh booths. With that, the state BJP will go to forge a man-to-man, door-to-door connectivity with voters.
The party’s’main bhi panna pramukh’ campaign was launched on October 8 when the state party president Swatantra Dev Singh assumed the responsibility for his booth to start the campaign. The state BJP, which has already gone micro in its election strategy since 2014, has harped big time on panna pramukhs. “Prior to this, panna pramukhs were appointed a few days ahead of the elections and it was never with such a bang,” said the party leader.
It was decided in the executive committee meeting of the state BJP held in March that panna pramukh will be a permanent appointee. A panna pramukh is a booth level functionary. Each of them have been verified by the party. And, they will have a key role in the party’s membership drive which might be started soon to add new members.
As part of its micro-management and micro-planning, the state BJP has made booth the centre of its focus. The party is appointing key functionaries at the booth level besides having a 21-member booth level committee at every booth.
