BHUBANESWAR: After successive defeats to BJD in the panchayat elections followed by urban polls, the BJP has decided to restructure the booth-level committees which have remained inactive after the 2019 general elections.
As the saffron party is currently celebrating the 8th year completion of Narendra Modi-led NDA government at the Centre, the organisational changes will be taken up after June 15, the last date of the fortnight long Seva, Sushasan, Garib Kalyan programme.
"The booth committees have become dormant in the last two years due to COVID-19 pandemic. These need to be reinvigorated to make them battle ready for the 2024 elections," said State BJP president Samir Mohanty.
The 'Mo Booth Sabuthu Mazbhoot' (my booth is the strongest) programme will be re-launched in about 36,000 booths in the 147 Assembly segments of the State with an aim to reach out to maximum people with a message of good governance of the Modi government.
Admitting that the BJP could not match the massive electioneering machinery and money power of the ruling BJD in the panchayat and urban polls, Mohanty said the massive public outreach programme of his party proved futile.
"We failed to convey the successes of the Narendra Modi government and its welfare programmes to the people, while the BJD government took all the credit of the Central programmes be it free foodgrain supply during pandemic, rural housing, tap water supply and rural electrification," he said.
Mohanty said the party has identified that the booths need to be strengthened by bringing in necessary changes in the organisational structure. Every booth will have 20 members and there will be one person in charge of booth workers.
The booth-level workers will travel extensively and also make door-to-door contact to explain the people about the the Modi government programmes that brought a change in their lives.
The BJP had taken a massive exercise of forming booth committees before the last general election under the stewardship of then president Amit Shah after realising that the party failed to reap desired benefit in the 2014 polls due to lack of booth infrastructure.
The programme was launched after the stupendous success of the party in the 2017 panchayat polls when the BJP registered a nine-fold jump in the number of Zilla Parishad seats it won. However, the party which increased its voting percentage from 18 per cent in 2014 to 32.85 per cent in 2019 could manage to get about 30 per cent votes in the panchayat polls.