The ruling BJP, worried about the low voter turnout in the first phase of Lok Sabha polls on eight seats of Uttar Pradesh, has drawn up a comprehensive strategy to increase the poll percentage in the second phase to be held on April 26.

The BJP leadership of UP has decided to focus completely on increasing the voting percentage. A special strategy has been planned to reach out to the farmers, labourers and villagers who are busy due to summer and wheat harvesting, and bring them to the voting booths.

According to a senior party leader, the BJP has changed its strategy. Now every 10 votes will be monitored.
“The responsibility will be of one party worker, which means , now six BJP workers will be responsible for contacting 60 voters mentioned on one page of the voter list and bringing them to the polling booths on the day of voting. In the scorching heat, the party workers will try to make the voters reach the polling booth early in the morning,” said the leader here on Tuesday.

As far as the organisational structure is concerned, the BJP has woven it tightly in many layers. In the last elections, the party had started the system of Panna Pramukh to reach out to the voters intensively. Under this, a party leader was made the head of one page of the voter list. On its foundation day on April 6, the party had entrusted all the Panna Pramukhs with the responsibility of personally contacting the 60 voters mentioned on one page of the voter list and updating their mobile numbers.

State BJP General Secretary Organization Dharampal Singh has now focused on making the Panna Pramukh system more voter centric.

Regarding this, he has given guidelines in the meetings of the party’s Lok Sabha Steering Committee and Booth and Panna Committees held here recently.

“Now a party worker will monitor only 10 votes and will have to contact these voters two to three times before the polling day. Care has to be taken to ensure that none of these voters are left out during the voting. If family members are out somewhere, the focus will be on calling them home at all costs to vote,” Singh has directed to the workers .

In the meeting, it was decided that the booth workers should be activated as much as possible so that they can take the people to the polling place in the next phase so that the voting percentage can increase. For this, the party has done brainstorming for coordination at every level.

Senior leaders will monitor the campaign from Shakti Kendras, on the implementation of the instructions from booth to district level.

In the first phase of polls in eight seats, the average turnout was around 6 per cent less than the 2019 poll percentage.

In Rampur, Bijnor and Muzaffarnagar seats, the deficit was around 8 per cent this time compared to the 2019 general elections.