How can you get from less than 5,000 to more than 5 lakh? This was one of the challenges assigned by Gujarat BJP president C R Paatil as he convened a ‘Social Media Pathshala’ for the party’s Vadodara city division recently, along with a power point, various data, personal instances and entire new targets.
The live broadcast, hour-long orientation presentation took place in a Vadodara hall with seating for a thousand people. Prior to the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP’s much-heralded page committees, which cover electoral rolls page-by-page, were tasked with reaching out to as many of the 74 lakh homes and 2.9 crore voters as they could who, in the party’s estimation, did not support it in the most recent Assembly elections.
The cutoff date is May 10. The objective was to win Lok Sabha seats in the state by more than 5 lakh votes.
By the way, the Vadodara Lok Sabha seat is already there. Prime Minister Narendra Modi won with more than 5 lakh votes in this area in 2014. The BJP won with a similar margin in the Vadodara byelection held in October after he abandoned the seat and kept his Varanasi Lok Sabha seat; the party repeated the feat in 2019.
With 156 seats, the BJP won the most seats it has ever won in Gujarat’s history in the elections of December 2022. However, according to Paatil, the BJP has already forgotten about that story. He stated that it was time to “aspire for bigger positions”.
“We are not bhajan mandli singers who sing bhajans to God and wait for accolades; we are political leaders. And if God grants the benefits, we accept them; if not, we go to sleep. No! Without putting in a lot of effort, we cannot receive the tickets we want. Starting tomorrow, no party member with no aspirations should join the party, the BJP president urged, urging party officials to pursue “designations and pride” in addition to tickets. Be prepared to bear the responsibilities you eventually get, though, as the Sangh instructs.