In an election where much of the narrative revolves around the inevitability of the BJP being voted back to power, the party is facing two challenges: complacency among party workers convinced of victory, and the record-breaking heat to hit the country this poll season. The India Metereological Department has already predicted that the country will experience heat waves lasting 10 to 20 days, double that of the usual occurrence.
In meetings with the BJP’s booth workers over video conference, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s pep talk often resembles advisories put out by the government over extreme weather events. At the ‘Namo parivar tiffin baithak’ (Namo family tiffin meeting) of BJP workers in Varanasi, Mr. Modi’s constituency, he went into quite a few details on how to beat the heat.
“Along with your work, please take of your health as well in this heat. I have heard that as early as now, in Varanasi, sattu ki lassi (gram flour shake) is available, aam ka panna (juice made of raw mangoes) is also available. I would request that all of you please drink these as much as possible and also have copious quantities of water, keep a bottle of water close by always. Only if you all are energetic and healthy, will I be worry free as to the outcome of the polls,” he said.
In the ‘Sushaktamaanu Ente Booth’ (my booth is strong) programme on March 30, he advised party workers in Kerala to ensure early voting. “On one hand, the poll heat is growing, and, on the other, the weather is also heating up. Do ensure that BJP supporters manage to vote early,” he said.
While the heat is one factor, complacency among BJP voters and workers is another factor that worries the leadership.
Rajendra Agarwal, secretary in the Madhya Pradesh BJP, and booth prabhandhan (organiser) said, “Our effort on polling day will be a 5 a.m. exit for our booth-level agent and a target for every worker to get to early voting along with at least four families in their neighbourhood. I can say that our workers are enthusiastic about voting in Modi ji for a third term,” he said.
Shashi Shekhar Vempati, former chief executive officer of Prasar Bharati and co-founder of DeepTech for Bharat Foundation, says that he sees a combination of several factors to overcome complacency, not least what he terms as the “stretch target of 370+ and Chaar Sau paar (over 400).”
“It is a leaf straight out of business school handbooks on setting a wildly impossible goal to motivate teams to stretch themselves and shift goalposts by a significant margin,” he told The Hindu. He considers the early finalisation of a bulk of the candidates so there is no seat-level uncertainty, the dropping of nearly 100 sitting MPs sends a message that “you can’t take anything for granted,” he said.
The party campaign has also incorporated technology, including the NaMo App incentive scheme, in which anyone making a micro-donation — a sum between ₹5 and ₹1,000 — will be given a referral code. The code can be used to encourage a further 100 people to donate to the party, and if successful, the referrer will get a chance to meet Mr. Modi. The party is also using AI for speeches to be out in multiple languages to better engage workers across the country.
