Placating the ground level workers, who are the core strength of the BJP, and bringing them back into action is proving more challenging for the party election strategists in Madhya Pradesh than those who were denied tickets and turned rebels.
Sources privy to the developments in the BJP told IANS that the party has covered a lot of ground in the past two-three months and has been successful in countering the high anti-incumbency after nearly two decades of it's rule in the state. However, what is more worrying is the resentment of it's ground level workers.
Party workers would attend meetings and leave with instructions from the top leaders, including from the Centre, however, they were not executing the plans on the ground. A BJP leader, who has been active in Madhya Pradesh's politics for decades, said conducting meetings with the ground level workers has always been the job of the state in-charge, party president, but not the home minister.
"Ground workers are angry with the state leadership because they were not paid heed to for the last five years or more and the leaders gave more importance to their near ones. Now when the elections are near, the angry workers are not getting ready to work in the way they used to earlier. This is a major concern, which is why the top leadership has now taken this responsibility," a Delhi based senior BJP leader, who is part of the Mandhya Pradesh election team, said on condition of anonymity.
He cited the three-day visit of Union Minister Amit Shah to Madhya Pradesh. The leader claimed multiple attempts were made to cajole the party workers into action and promises were made to them. He claimed that Union Minister Narendra Singh Tomar was enrolled for the MP election campaign mainly to convince the party's ground level workers.
"Not only Narendra Singh Tomar but other senior leaders like general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya and Union Ministers Prahlad Patel, Bhupendra Yadav and some state BJP leaders have been working on it for long. But the workers have a long list of grievances for their annoyance with the state leadership. And it is not just against Chief Minister Chouhan and the state unit head V. D. Sharma, but most of the powerful ministers," the BJP leader added.
Importantly, in the last three days, Amit Shah visited several places including Bhopal, Ujjain, Chhindwara, Jabalpur and Gwalior and held meetings with the party workers. This visit by Shah has been quite different from the other times as he used to address big rallies also. But, this time he emphasised on meeting the workers in a bid to bring them back into action.
A senior political observer who spoke to IANS agreed with the BJP leader saying the top leadership frames strategies and it is upto the state leaders and workers to execute those plans. He said the BJP workers seem more angry than the general public and they seem to have made up their mind to teach a lesson to these leaders.
"Here in Madhya Pradesh, the BJP is always on edge because of it's committed workers on the ground. But, for the last few years, the leaders have sidelined the party' core workers and relatives were given more preference, which was not the BJP's culture earlier. It is a cadre based party, and if it's cadre is not happy and not working honestly, then it's a big problem for the BJP," said the political observer.
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