Last minute decision… BJP did not get such a big victory in Maharashtra just like that

Kumar Anshuman, New Delhi: Ever since Amit Shah became the party president in 2014, winning booths has become the mantra for winning elections and the Maharashtra Assembly elections were no different. What differentiates Maharashtra from other states won by the BJP is the special strategy that the party adopted to turn it in its favor in a state where it had suffered a setback just four months ago. The BJP won 149 assembly seats. Contested the elections and won 132 seats with a strike rate of 89%. In this way, the party achieved its biggest victory till date in Maharashtra. BJP limited the fight to 12,000 swing polling booths out of about one lakh booths in Maharashtra. This helped it win assembly seats in areas where the opposition was considered strong.

formed the team

Soon after the Lok Sabha elections, BJP appointed Union ministers Bhupendra Yadav and Ashwini Vaishnav as election in-charge of Maharashtra. Both the leaders together won the crucial Madhya Pradesh election for the party in 2023. Apart from these two, BJP has two in-house agencies, Varaha Analytics and Jarvis Consulting, which handle campaign strategy and data intelligence for the party.

election within election

In September, Union Home Minister Amit Shah met BJP leaders in Maharashtra. In the meeting, Shah is believed to have instructed the leaders to forget that this is an assembly election and focus on the polling stations in their respective areas. Jarvis Consulting was asked to find out the swing seats lost or won by the BJP in the last few elections along with the changing patterns of voters.

Identification of 69 assembly seats

Sources told our associate newspaper ET that the party’s internal survey has identified 69 assembly seats which the party can win with minimal efforts. These include seats of senior party leaders like Devendra Fadnavis and Ashish Shelar. The focus was on winning 70 more assembly seats to take the party’s tally to 125. After an intensive exercise, 80 assembly seats were identified where the BJP won or lost the elections with a vote swing of 3-4%.

Three categories of swing booth

Of the 80 seats identified, maximum 31 seats were in Vidarbha region. Once the seats were identified, the next task was to identify swing booths in each of the 80 assembly seats. The party has created three broad categories of polling stations. A category booths where the party wins in terms of votes, B category booths where it wins or loses due to voter change and the third C category where it never wins.

Identification of 12 thousand booths

The area of ​​focus was limited to B-category booths. After data mining, 12,000 booths were identified as B-category booths, which will decide whether BJP will win or lose the Maharashtra battle. The total booths in Maharashtra Assembly elections were 1,00,186, but BJP put a lot of emphasis on these 12,000 booths.

A BJP leader involved in the campaign said that this was the first time that we were working on an election within an election, where the focus was only on 12% of the polling stations in the entire state.

From call center to booth management

Once the targets were set, resource mobilization began three months before the elections in September. ET learned that Bhupendra Yadav, Vaishnav and BJP national joint general secretary Shivprakash ensured that whatever the team required was made available to them. Varahe was asked to create special content for these 80 assembly seats to connect with voters, focusing on regional and local issues.

Five call centers were created in Nagpur, Nashik, Pune, Mumbai and Thane with approximately 200 callers each. The 1,000 callers were given 10 to 12 booths each and were asked to interact face-to-face with booth level workers at least twice a week at one booth.

BJP leader Sumant Ghaisas was made in-charge of call center and booth management. Former Union Minister Bhagwat Karad was asked to remove the shortcomings in terms of team and coordination at the booth level. Daily tracking began a month before the voting with the goal of building a proper team.

focus on women

This was the first election in which BJP called a large number of women party leaders from other states. At least one woman leader was deployed on all 80 assembly seats. In addition, the party appointed women detailers in each assembly constituency. Provided him/her a scooty to cover all the listed booths of his/her assembly. Tiffin meetings were held on regular basis with women activists and women leaders from other states.

It was ensured that women leaders of other parties involved in the Mahayuti were present and included in the meetings. The leaders were also given a target to meet at least 50 female beneficiaries of the Girl Sister Scheme. According to sources, this exercise started one and a half months before the voting. As voting approached, migrant women leaders struck a chord with grassroots workers as well as voters.

efforts among OBC

A week before Diwali, Bhupendra Yadav called a meeting of OBC leaders and influential people from different castes at Devendra Fadnavis’ residence in Mumbai. In this, their issues were discussed and resolved with the government and the party. Sources told ET that throughout the campaign, Yadav was personally managing the OBC community across Maharashtra, focusing on 80 seats. he/she traveled to all the areas and participated in regional meetings targeting the OBC community.

The feedback at the grassroots level from some seats in Marathwada was that if Pankaja Munde campaigns in the seats, the party may turn a section of voters in its favour.

Special helicopter to Pankaja Munde

ET learned that Yadav provided a special helicopter to Munde for four days and asked him/her to go wherever he/she wanted in the area. Helicopters made 16 to 17 landings a day. The Finance Department raised the issue of budget but Yadav strongly supported Munde. Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Mohan Yadav and Chhattisgarh Deputy Chief Minister Arun Sao also campaigned in areas with high concentration of OBC votes.

Important role of tribal votes in victory

With 24 ST reserved assembly seats in the state, the support of tribal voters was an important factor for the BJP’s success in the elections. During the Lok Sabha elections, the party performed poorly in tribal areas. To bring tribals into the party fold, the party deployed Nishant Khare, an old RSS ideologue who had worked among tribals in Madhya Pradesh.

Its stated aim was to improve the party’s performance in ST reserved seats as well as 25 other assembly seats, where tribal voters constitute about 25%. Khare has worked for the party in Madhya Pradesh and other states during Covid and the Assembly and Lok Sabha elections. Sources told ET that Khare created a team of PESA volunteers who were ready to work for the party during the elections.

About 500 volunteers came to work for the party. They were given training to work in their respective fields. Four days before the elections, 40-50 volunteers were given bikes with petrol to go to all the tribal areas and prepare the voters on the polling day.

Won 21 seats out of 24

On the day of polling, he/she was assigned the task of voting five times each, apart from his/her family members, at his/her booth. Bikers transported tribals to polling stations from areas where there were no roads and this helped in increasing the voting percentage. Out of 24 ST reserved assembly seats, NDA won 21 seats. Of these, BJP won 10, Shiv Sena won six and NCP won five. Of the 25 other seats where the tribal population was 25% or more, the NDA won all 25 seats.

Success in increasing votes by 5%

After a three-month exercise, BJP was successful in increasing votes in these constituencies by about 5%. Out of the 69 assembly seats on which the party was confident of winning, it won 64 seats. Of the 80 seats with 12,000 swing booths, the BJP won 68, taking the total number of seats to 132, the highest for the party in the state.

While campaign strategists of Shiv Sena and NCP were quite vocal about their parties’ success, many leaders and agencies working for BJP were reluctant to tell the story openly.

Now work starts on the next elections

Mogra, a veteran of Jarvis Consulting, told ET that the party is his/her client for other agencies. They take it like an assignment. In our case we are the extended wing of the party and our primary duty is to complete the work assigned to us. Bhupendra Yadav has returned to Delhi to complete his/her ministerial work. BJP’s election machinery has quietly left the state. Have started working on the upcoming elections.