AHMEDABAD: With the Assembly polls round the corner, the ruling BJP in Gujarat is shifting gears to enhance its public outreach. Under the ‘BJP Digital Warrior’ (BDW) campaign, the party is targeting unaffiliated tech-savvy youth who are broadly sympathetic to the party.
The party has also activated ‘panna pramukhs’ for door-to-door campaigns.
A ‘panna pramukh’ is in-charge of a page of a voters’ list and the first point of contact in the party’s election machinery.
Party workers from neighboring states of MP, Rajasthan, and UP are starting to move into Gujarat to accelerate the electioneering process.
State BJP chief CR Patil while addressing a gathering in Surat sought to convert the poll battle into a full-scale war for power.
“Elections are a few days away… all BJP workers should aim to win each seat by more than 50 thousand votes. The war is on, weapons are ready, show no mercy when you enter the field,” Patil told party activists.
In effect, Patil wants to attract the youth through the BDW campaign. State BJP’s social media co-convener Manan Dani Told TNIE that the idea behind BDW campaign is to bring in tech-savvy youth who are sympathetic to the party but not formally associated with it.
“Such people can call a number given by the party and get connected as a digital volunteer/warrior. We have a modest target of 1 lakh youth under this campaign to begin with,” said Dani.
“Our target through this campaign is to connect the people with the Gujarat government and take the vision of Prime Minister Modi to every corner of Gujarat,” said Dani.
Patil claims that the party has more than 1.13 crore primary members in the state. Besides, there are more than 80 lakh page committee members.
BJP maintains that in the growing social media influence, the BDW would be an innovative experiment to involve more youth in the party affairs. Initially, the campaign will run for 15 days beginning September 7.
BJP spokesperson Jubin Ashra Told TNIE that around 600 party workers from six states were campaigning in various parts of Gujarat.
“These are preliminary visits where they are getting a sense of the areas they will have to work. They will be back soon and visit places where people from a certain state are concentrated,” he said Ashra.