NEW DELHI: In the upcoming DUSU elections, the Akhil Bhartiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) has decided to replace its manifesto with a vision document and going by the BJP pattern of campaigning, the RSS-affiliated student group will assign volunteers who will work like ‘Panna Pramukhs’ to reach voters.
In the BJP strategy, each prabhari is given responsibility for a panna (page). The prabhari’s job is to target the names on the list. Usually, each page has the names of members of around eight to 12 families.
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Even though the ABVP hasn’t officially subscribed to this expression, their method of functioning is similar to it.
For the Delhi University Students’ Union (DUSU) elections which are slated for September 12, the ABVP has appointed about 30 volunteers in various classes for campaigning in each of the 51 DUSU-affiliated colleges.
“No organisation has gone so deep (reached the grassroots). ABVP is doing so. We will be able to cover up around 65 per cent classes under this.” said ABVP state secretary Siddharth Yadav.
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“The class volunteers have been asked to make lists of our supporters, those who support other groups and neutrals. Their job is to promote voting so maximum number of students turn up and second is to call our supporters and to make sure that they vote,” he added.
Yadav further said: “Every college has students in-charge...sports in-charge, society (cultural club) in-charge. For elections, they have been given a time table to hold meetings with voters so our content reaches out and voters have an informed choice.”
The vision document, he said, will be a compilation of party inputs and students’ feedback. “We are taking suggestions from the students. We are reaching them through various means. We are circulating google docs, we are doing it offline in various colleges. Our candidates are going to colleges to ask them too,” he said.
According to Yadav, a major issue this year would be the fee hike. “The issue that has commonly come up is the increase in fee of colleges and hostels,” he said.