The state BJP leadership is moving ahead with the target of forming every booth committee in West Bengal before the Lok Sabha elections. However, ‘Panna’ or page committee is not being formed separately in this state. Some of the booth committee will be responsible for that. Padma Shivir explains that they want to prepare to strengthen the organization in the state before the next assembly elections, keeping the Lok Sabha in front.
In the last West Bengal assembly polls, the BJP had an unprecedentedly good result. Although the state leadership claims, how many seats can be won this time, the party has not done any analysis yet.
The stance of central leadership
The central leadership is aware of the fact that the BJP organization in Bengal is now largely in the books. For that reason, a two-day meeting of the top leaders of the organization at the BJP headquarters in Delhi has been ordered to separate the West Bengal leadership and strengthen the organization. Special emphasis has been laid on the formation of booth committees so that the BJP cadres can reach every member of every booth-based family. Below the Booth Committee is the Panna or Page Committee.
The responsibility of the committee members is to reach out to the people whose names appear on each page of the voter list and ask them to vote for the BJP. However, the BJP leadership of West Bengal has decided that the number of members of each booth committee will be kept around 30 instead of forming separate page committees in the state. Some of the members of the booth committee will be instructed to perform the duties of the page committee.
Number of booths
Currently, there are around 79 to 80 thousand booths in Bengal. According to the opposition, the BJP failed to provide agents on polling day in almost half of the booths in the last assembly. And since the assembly elections, the BJP has halved in this state. Many BJP workers are sitting in the conflict between the old and the new. Is it possible to get 24 lakh dedicated workers for 80 thousand booths in this climate? State BJP president Sukanta Majumdar said, “We are optimistic. We aim to have a booth committee of 30 members before the Lok Sabha elections.”
A party leader explained that party organization is needed in every booth if the Trinamool Congress is to be defeated. Therefore, given the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the party aims to build a strong organization for the 2026 assembly.
The upcoming Lok Sabha elections are keeping the state BJP on its toes. BJP won 18 out of 42 seats in the state in the last election. But the leaders of the state have claimed that they have not yet started to look into the organizational situation of the party holding Lok Sabha seats. In close quarters, they accept that there is a question mark over retaining half the seats in the current disjointed state of the party in the state.