With Amit Shah in charge of the war room, BJP gets ready for battle in Bihar

A war room buzzing with activity 24X7, daily review meetings, a large number of central leaders and ministers either in Patna or in the districts and a whopping two dozen proposed rallies by Prime Minister Narendra Modi — the assembly elections this time is a whole new experience for the Bihar unit of the BJP. Party president Amit Shah is in charge and it shows in the sense of urgency in all poll-related activities.

The laid back approach just won’t do for Shah. All state and central party leaders have to be on their toes as the party boss could summon them anytime and seek a factual progress report on the developments on the ground right from the level of villages and panchayats. Besides holding a series of meetings at his hotel room, Shah would land at the state party headquarters at Veer Chand Patel Path and stay there till late. He leads by example, beginning his typical day early morning and ending it well beyond midnight, between 2 am and 3 am.

Shah’s command is total and party leaders and workers hold him in awe. It’s a high-stake election for him and his party, and he is not leaving anything to chance. He and his team seem to have learnt a few lessons from the debacle in Delhi and want no repetition. Ticket distribution, for instance, has been made early this time.

In his first marathon “review” meeting after he landed in Patna early last week, Shah made a number of decisions. Accountability was fixed and it was made clear to central and state leaders that they would be answerable for their hits and misses. Till the time of announcement of elections, the BJP had divided the state into four zones – Muzaffarpur, Gaya, Shahrsa and Bhagalpur. These were also areas where Narendra Modi held his first round of Parivartan rallies before elections were announced. Shah further divided these 4r zones into 12 zones. Leaders like Radha Mohan Singh, Giriraj Singh, Rajeev Pratap Rudi, JP Nadda, Sanjay Jaiswal, Ashwini Choubey and Kailash Vijayvargiya were assigned the charge of one zone each.

Senior leader Ravi Shankar Prasad was not part of this zonal `Prabhari’ (in-charge) team but was asked to camp for about a week in Samastipur and Darbhanga. Local party workers had some issues with the leadership which needed to be sorted out quickly. The area is going to poll in the first phase on October 12. Presence of a senior leader was needed to ensure that things proceeded smoothly.

Narendra Modi would address a rally in Samastipur on 8 October. On the same day he would also address rallies at Munger, Nawada and Begusarai. The BJP leaders are yet not saying how many rallies the prime minister would address because it will be finalised phase to phase, depending on his availability. But “he has assured us that he would give as much time as required by the state unit”, a senior party leader said.

Shah is holding a series of conventions with district and block presidents, organization and election in-charge, booth level workers – one convention for each of five phases of elections. His first convention was in Begusarai, followed by those in Aurangabad, Patna, Katihar and in Supaul. The last such convention was held today.

Senior central party leaders like Rajnath Singh, Sushma Swaraj and Smriti Irani are being used for the campaign. Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti makes a comeback in areas where members of Nishad caste are in big numbers. MoS Railways, Manoj Sinha, a Bhumihar from eastern UP, has become an integral part of the BJP’s Bihar strategy and campaign.

The stress in on winning over the Ati-Pichda (extremely backward castes or EBCs). The polling preference of this grouping will decide which alliances – NDA or RJD-JD(U)-CongMahagathbandhan’s Diwali will be brighter and sweeter. The BJP thinks that the voters in the age group of 18-40 are generally influenced by Modi and could be tilted in their favour.

Shah is targeting new voters, which number around one crore, and newly enrolled BJP members. The BJP now has an active data base of around 67 lakh new members and they are being kept in touch with messages through Whatsapp and SMS.