MUMBAI: Taking a leaf out of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s poll strategy, MNS chief Raj Thackeray has asked his partymen to adopt the BJP’s ‘One booth, Ten youth’ system for the upcoming Legislative Assembly elections.
According to an official, Raj has asked about 220 unit chiefs of the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) here to depute in each unit at least 10 tech-savvy youths, who could handle the party’s campaign on social media.
“Rajsaheb held a meeting of the unit chiefs on Friday. He wants them to learn lessons from Modi’s team on how to involve common people in the campaign,” the official said.
MNS leader Nitin Sardesai confirmed that the party has initiated a process to identify booth-level workers. “Initially, we will identify the youths, who can work at the booth level. Then, we will assign them some work. It may be door-to-door campaign or activities on social media. We are also planning to appoint one contact person for every housing society,” he told Express.
In another development, Raj has decided to wear colourful clothes, instead of stereotype white kurta and pyjama, in public. He believes that the people are fed up of seeing politicians in white attire. “Whenever people see a politician in white, they think that he is either corrupt or has returned from a funeral. I am going to wear colourful shirts in public,” he has told the party officials.
At a book release function on Sunday he was seen in full sleeved light blue kurta. Two days ago, Raj had addressed reporters in Nashik in a yellow check shirt.
A close aide of Raj said his decision to give up white was inspired by Modi, who used to wear colourful kurtas during the Lok Sabha election campaign. “Saheb (Raj) is a great fan of Modi. Being a cartoonist and painter, he also has a great sense of colours. He is trying to get over the stereotype images ofa politician,” he said.
Raj gets his clothes stitched from ‘Gabana’, a shop at Dadar. Normally, he addresses public gatherings in grey trouser and white full sleeved shirt.
Hencefort, he is likely to wear full sleeved light colour kurtas in rallies and full sleeved dark colour shirts in other functions.