Rajasthan: Amit Shah makes his move on chessboard

After his recent month-long tours to Rajasthan, BJP national president Amit Shah has moved on to handle poll management in Rajasthan on the lines of Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh. For this a handpicked team of BJP cadre from six states is being moved in for election management. This team belongs to Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Delhi, Haryana, Punjab and Himachal Pradesh. 

It would be responsible for implementing Shah’s strategy of micro management of booths.

As per well informed sources they include senior party workers, organisation functionaries, legislators and even ministers. Their target is to bring party voters to polling booths and their deployment would also follow a pattern.

“Those from Haryana would work in Alwar, Sikar, Jhunjhunu and Churu. Ones from Gujarat in Udaipur, Dungarpur, Banswara, Barmer, Jalore and Sirohi . The ones from UP would be in Bharatpur, Dholpur while those from Punjab will work in Sri Ganganagar and Hanumangarh,” said a party source.

The other parameter would be necessity on basis of their organisational strengths and skills. Caste would also be a parameter. They would be asked to support local units in booth management, getting the voter to the booth, containing exigencies and even media and communications.  

As per informed sources, Shah was not to happy with the organisation structure in the state. 

“Rajasthan lacked an organisation structure that worked for the party irrespective of the candidate. Elections were more managed by candidates with some support from state leadership. Whereas in Gujarat there is a strong grassroots network. This strategy was successfully used to win Uttar Pradesh and would now be used in Rajasthan,” said a senior leader. Party insiders believe that it is a major tactical shift that would make 2018 elections fought not on the charisma of state and regional leaders.