The 2021 Bengal election results have led BJP to train about 7 lakh workers at the booth level to further strengthen its ground ahead of the upcoming municipal elections.

Time and again political experts have highlighted the importance of having a robust system at the booth levels to win an election in Bengal. The saffron brigade, however, had to an extent sought to ignore it and took chances by carrying out an all-out attack campaign approach using the party’s heavyweights, such as union ministers.

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Deducing that lack of training of the booth level workers is a major reason behind the defeat in the recently concluded assembly polls, the state BJP leadership has now decided to train nearly 7,00,000 booth level workers before the forthcoming Municipal and Corporation elections.

The state’s BJP leadership decided it is imperative that training of these booth workers be conducted in two phases — initially, 50000 workers and volunteers and then another 20000 workers and volunteers.

BJP sources said that the decision for training was of BJP’s national president, JP Nadda. For conducting the workshops two teams from BJP’s IT cell and media cell have come to the state from New Delhi.

“A directive in this regard from the central leadership has already reached the state committee. Accordingly, instructions have been forwarded to all the district presidents of the party in the state. For the time being ten booth-level workers for each are being trained in a single phase,” a senior state BJP leader said.

“They have direct relations with the voters and are the only ones who can provide proper information to the state and the central leadership. So, it is very important that they are properly trained so that they work effectively for the party,” another leader said.

It is learnt that the training will be conducted for all the 78,000 polling booths in the state. A target has been set for training 50,000 booth-level workers in the first phase. The state leadership has also been directed to regularly attend these training sessions. Some of these workshops have already started. They will be conducted in all the 39 organizational districts of the BJP.

These training sessions will continue for the next six months. After the first three months, those attending the workshops will have to appear for an examination. The BJP intends to field only selected and well-trained booth level workers in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.

“The Municipal and Corporation elections will take place at any moment and we don’t want the repetition of the same thing. We have the support of the people. They are frustrated with Mamata Banerjee and Trinamool Congress but we need to convert this into votes and that’s where the booth level workers play a very important role,” a senior leader said.

…With IANS input