BJP in Rajasthan is leaving no stone unturned to re-capture power in coming assembly polls. One set of its leaders is busy in telling the electorates of the achievements of the government, whereas the other set is engaged in gearing up the party organisation and the election machinery. Soon after taking over as party president of Rajasthan in January this year Shri Om Prakash Mathur is focussing on to activate party cadre. He is spending more time to supervise the booth-level committees, about which he is sure that these committees would play an important role in these elections. Following are excerpts from an interview with Lokpal Sethi.
How do you look at the present political scenario of the state?
Situation is very much favourable for BJP in the state as Congress has no major issue against us.
Smt Vasundhara Raje-led government has done a commendable job during the past five years and its popularity is very much intact, rather it has increased. Its achievements in implementation of NREGS has been lauded by the UPA government. Rajasthan is ahead of all the states in this area, during the past three years. Similarly not only the Union Finance Minister, but even the Planning Commission have appreciated the efficient financial management of the BJP government.
There are talks that Gujjar agitation would cost the party heavily in the coming election.
This is far from reality as Gujjars, like the last elections, are very much rallying behind the BJP, as they did before the last assembly election. BJP had promised the community that if it comes to power, it would help them get the status of Scheduled Tribe. Party has fullfilled this election promise by recommending the ST status for the community. Now it is for the Centre to initiate steps to include the community in ST as this could be done only by amending the Constitution. Not only leaders of the community but also the common man is convinced that BJP government has done, what it had promised. So there is no resentment among the Gujjars against the BJP government. Efforts of the Congress to lure the community to its side, have failed as Gujjar supremo Col. Kirori Singh Bainsla and other top leaders of the community are solidly with the BJP and would work for the victory of the party in the elections.
Do you not think that bickerings may adversely affect the chances of party'sreturning to power?
First I would like to correct that there are bickering in the party. There are hardly such things happening in the party. Since ours is a fully democratic party, everyone has the right to express his or her opinion. But this difference of opinion should not be perceived as bickering as this was an essential part or character of any political party, which claim itself a democratic party. At the same time important thing is that we resolve these differences through continuous process of internal interaction like a family.
Party leaders are talking about the Gujarat formula, which would be applied in the elections in Rajasthan. How do you describe this formula?
The Gujarat formula term is entirely a creation of media. Basically we are working on management of election at micro level, through the booth level committees of party workers. In fact, when I was sent to Madhya Pradesh as incharge before the assembly election, the party organisation was not in good shape. Though there was large number of party workers, leadership was not finding any effective way to use the cadre during the election. At that time idea of formulating booth level committees of the party workers came into being. Being members of the committees, party cadre at the grass root level felt that he was part of the party'selection machinery and have certain responsibilities to be carried out during the elections. These committees and their members played an important role in winning the elections in MP.
How it reached to Gujarat?
After successfully carrying out my responsibilities in MP, I was made incharge of Gujarat by the party. Since Narendra Modi, Chief Minister of Gujarat is himself man of organisation, he understood the importance of involvement of party cadre at grass root level. Before the assembly elections there, we both sat together and started working on formulation of booth level committees ahead of elections. The experiment again proved very successful as apart from achievements of the Gujarat'sBJP government, these committees and its members played a significant role in ensuring victory of the party.
What about Rajasthan?
We have formed booth level committees for all the 42,000 booths in 200 assembly constituencies. Each committee has 15 members, so we have an active force of about 6 lakh party workers. We have already held constituency-level conferences of members of these committees. Only in last week a state level convention of these members was held in the state, where four to five members of each committee were invited. This was one of its own kind show of committed party workers. As worked out, each member of the committee would be allotted about 100 voters. It would be his task to ensure that these electorates, allotted to him, have cast their votes. If a member was able to bring even 60 per cent of the voters allotted to him, to cast their votes, it would assure the party lead from that particular booth. I am telling the members of these committees that booth jeeta to chunav jeeta. So they are working hard for the same.
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