BJP rolls out ‘page pramukh’ strategy for Kerala

KOCHI: BJP’s micro-level strategy of personally connecting with voters through ‘page pramukhs’, successfully tested in states like Gujarat, Karnataka and UP by party president Amit Shah, has been rolled out in the state.


The ‘page’ referred to here is the printed page of electoral roll in every booth and one party worker would be solely responsible for connecting with voters in it. If the voters list for a booth in a constituency has 30 pages, 30 workers would be given the responsibility of handling one page each. Though used in the 2014

Lok Sabha

polls, this is the for the first time that the strategy is being tried in Kerala, which has so far given only one assembly seat to the party as electoral dividend. Shah who visited the state in February had presided a meeting of ‘page pramukhs’ in the state. A similar meeting in Pathanamthitta was attended by UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath.

The ‘page pramukhs’ would have personal acquaintance with people in the list and would have intimate knowledge of their political preferences. “Each page pramukh would have met voters at least 15 times before the polls are held. They would be educating voters regarding the administrative gains of Narendra Modi government. They would also collect feedback from them and then revise the approach if needed,” said A N Radhakrishnan, BJP’s candidate for Chalakkudy Lok Sabha constituency.

If they are unable to find enough people to allot one person per page, the pramukhs would have to take care of two electoral roll pages. Four to five booths in a constituency would be grouped under a ‘Shakti Kendra’. The strategy has been found effective in increasing the vote share for the party and would give an edge to BJP in constituencies like Thiruvananthapuram and

Palakkad

where they are strong. The party also has a ‘pancharatna’ committee in every booth comprising a woman worker, a scheduled caste/ scheduled tribe representative, youth and two general workers two connect with specific voter segments.