‘Panna pramukh’ to be vital to BJP’s micro-poll mgmt strategy
Pradeep Sharma
Chandigarh, July 13
Rattled by its below par performance in the recently-concluded Lok Sabha elections in which it could retain only five out of 10 seats, the BJP is again turning to the “panna pramukhs” to micro-manage its election campaign for the upcoming Assembly elections.
Roadmap soon
The BJP is a worker-centric party and efforts are always on to mobilise the workers in the run-up to elections. The party will come up with a detailed roadmap to gear up the cadre, including the ‘panna pramukhs’ for the Assembly poll soon. Vishal Seth, Convener, BJP poll management cell
The organisational matters, including “disconnect” with the grassroot-level workers, were discussed at a series of meetings held at Chandigarh over the past few days.
At the meeting, which was attended by, among others, election incharge Dharmendra Pradhan, election co-incharge Biplab Deb, Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini and BJP chief Mohan Lal Badoli, it was reportedly decided to strengthen the “ panna pramukh” mechanism of the party.
The “panna pramukh” is a unique concept devised by the BJP under which a party leader is made in charge of “panna”(page) of the electoral roll. These incharges are used by the BJP to motivate the voters to vote in favour of the party. It was felt that during the recent parliamentary elections, the party failed to mobilize the “panna pramukhs” leading to the BJP losing five seats yo Congress as compared to the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.
A senior leader said a suggestion was mooted at one of the meetings to organise awareness-cum-training programmes for over 3.5 lakh “panna pramukhs” across the state. Each of the 90 assembly segments has over 4,000 “panna pramukhs”.
Vishal Seth, convener of the state election management cell, said the BJP was a worker-centric party and efforts were on to mobilise the workers in the run-up to elections.
During the 2014 and 2019 Assembly and parliamentary elections, the BJP had successfully micro-managed the polls with the help of “panna pramukhs”, the concept which was used successfully for the first time in the 2017 Gujarat assembly elections. The “panna pramukhs” have been instrumental in establishing a ‘direct connect’ with the voters at the pooling booth level.
However, in the 2024 parliamentary polls, the “panna pramukhs” failed to live up to tbe expectations of the party resulting in party losing the Ambala, Sirsa, Rohtak, Hisar and Sonepat Lok Sabha seats.
