Former cop Kiran Bedi, who has become the Bharatiya Janata Party’s “prominent face” over the last two days, found mention only in the last two minutes of party president Amit Shah’s address at Hari Nagar here on Saturday.
Mr. Shah, who spoke for nearly 30 minutes to booth in-charges and panna pramukhs (page in-charges) in the West Delhi Lok Sabha parliamentary constituency, mentioned in passing that Ms. Bedi and Shazia Ilmi had been inducted into the party recently. He said that at present, more people are expected to join the party, but booth in-charges and panna pramukhs are like “God for the BJP”. Further, his instructions to party workers were to take Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “goodwill” and the Union government’s “good work” in the last seven months to voters.
“Modiji will come (to campaign); Kiran Bedi will come; Rajnath Singhji, Sushamji, Arun Jaitelyji will all come to speak here, but the person who will make us win is the booth in-charge and the page in-charge …and this strength is what will get us the full majority in Delhi,” he said.
Reiterating throughout that he wanted to focus on strengthening the organisation and the real victory can be sought through the hard work put in by booth in-charge and page in-charge in every constituency, Mr. Shah said, “We have to form such a BJP that nobody can ever defeat. We need to go back to our parampara of working to strengthen the organisation.”
After a string of wins for the saffron party in 2014, Mr. Shah said that Delhi’s elections would serve as a model case for the entire country. “These elections will set an example for all BJP party workers across the country on the benefits of how elections are won with a strong organisation. This is why for the last few months, I have personally met with the leaders in the Delhi BJP and we came up with the plan to select a booth in-charge and a page in-charge since there lays our victory,” he said.
Mr. Shah, who was instrumental in securing a win for the BJP in Uttar Pradesh through his booth management, appealed to party workers to systematically approach the next three weeks till polls. He instructed the booth in-charges to ensure that the page in-charges under their watch meet people every day for at least two to three hours and build a rapport with voters.
“There will not be more than 20-30 families under each person and….say ‘namsate chacha, namaste chachi, bhai kaise ho…’ and focus on each of these families to build a rapport,” he instructed.
The party president said that if these instructions were followed closely then the BJP would be able to easily defeat the Aam Aadmi Party in many seats. “These AAP party people don’t have to teach us how to meet and greet people. It was the BJP that established a connection with people. We don’t need to learn anything from you! (AAP).” He also instructed his colleagues to map key voters in each constituency. He instructed the party workers not to approach it as a win for the legislator or the chief minister but a win to “strengthen Mr. Modi and the BJP”.
