Modi setting 370 more votes target, BJP takes Milan Samaroh route to woo Opp booth workers

Days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi told the BJP National Council meeting that each party worker should ensure that the party gets 370 more votes than the last time in every booth, the ruling party has intensified its grassroots outreach, focusing on wooing ground-level workers of its rival parties in various states to expand its own base.

As part of this campaign, the BJP has started holding induction events called “Milan Samaroh” in the party-ruled Uttar Pradesh and some other heartland states. The BJP has claimed that over 88,000 people, including workers from different rival parties, have joined its fold in UP at these events organised in each of the state’s 403 Assembly constituencies since February 12.

In another BJP-ruled state, Uttarakhand, over 6,000 workers of the Congress, Samajwadi Party (SP), Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and Uttarakhand Kranti Dal (UKD) have joined the BJP so far at such “joining programmes”, party insiders said, adding that Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami and state party president Mahendra Bhatt would also attend such events from March 5.

Sources in the BJP said that those who are joining it through the Milan Samaroh events include booth-level Opposition parties’ workers, village pradhans, former zila panchayat functionaries, municipal corporators and rival candidates of the past Assembly and local body elections.

“We identified those workers who would put up a basta (a temporary stall set up by contesting candidates outside polling stations to help voters by informing them about their polling booths or providing them voter slips) for the SP, BSP and Congress in past elections. Also, those booth workers of these parties who have personal connect with voters of their localities. If they come