Setting its eyes firmly on seeking a third term for Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has decided to implement its biggest voter outreach strategy ever ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.

From outreach amongst the Pasmanda (backward) Muslims, to seeking votes of the Christian community in the Northeast and Kerala, the saffron unit is planning a massive public contact programme to implement PM Modi’s much-emphasised slogan ‘Sabka saath, sabka vikas, sabka prayas and sabka vishwas’. If everyone is taken along, why not sabka vote for the saffron unit in 2024 general elections ensuring continuity of this harmony?

However, the intent of the effort only seems to be in the right direction. Remember what PM Modi told the leaders at the National Executive recently — vote or no vote go among them, as they too are living in the same country. In Hyderabad meet, the PM had asked the leaders to expand the horizon and experiment with social engineering.

It is here that the PM advised the leaders to reach out to Pasmandas and Christians, communities that were seen as voters of political parties pitted against the BJP.

THE PASMANDAS

The party feels that Pasmandas are the deprived community among Muslims and the party can achieve electoral success if it projects and achieves public welfare scheme targets for this community. It’s a hand extended towards a community that needs to understand that they too have chance at better life.

The community, which has largely been devoid of any political or social power ever since independence, even by the parties that had used them as vote banks for years, is also being wooed by the ideological parent of the BJP, the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS).

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Sangh says it accepts invitation by any Muslim thinker or religious leader who wishes to meet.

Election management after all is majorly about arithmetic of caste and religion besides goodwill of the leader in the public.

With the outreach already expanding to the OBC, BCs and SCs, the party is also looking to expand its voter base. So that even if a few among the existing might get angry, it should have another bloc to rely upon to win the polls.

It says a lot about leadership and organisation that is working on Plan B on weaker seats whereas other parties in opposition are yet to begin on their Plan A. Assuming that opposition too will try to poach voters, the BJP isn’t waiting for them to do it, rather it is going on the offensive to make way into the communities that opposition believes is their traditional voters.

THE NEED FOR BIGGER OUTREACH

The BJP feels that it has touched a saturation point in the number of seats that it has won in north and west India. The party wants to expand in southern and eastern parts of the country to seek more seats and votes for the saffron front. The move is also expected to compensate for any loss of seats in 2024 Lok Sabha polls due to anti-incumbency, where the BJP has been maintaining an over 90 per cent strike rate in 2014 and 2019 general elections.

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​The thought process is clear in the BJP. Main gains in new areas and connect with more voters to successfully counter any loss of seats due to voter fatigue among its strongholds. That is why, an elaborate plan of Lok Sabha pravas of various top leaders and ministers has been put in place in parliament constituencies that the BJP has never won. From PM Modi, Union minister Amit Shah, Rajnath Singh to National President J P Nadda, all have been roped in to ensure that the lost seats can be translated into votes for the party.

The party has given its leaders and cadre a combined target of securing 150 Lok Sabha seats in southern and eastern part of the country.

While a strategy for expansion amongst new areas and populations is implemented, the BJP’s biggest task would be to successfully take on the opposition propaganda that the saffron unit was anti-minorities. The party hopes to convince these voters by presenting its work in Goa and the Northeast. The BJP is expected to emphasize that voters in these states have rejected opposition propaganda and they should give at least one chance to the saffron unit to serve them.

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