Lack of trained booth-level workers a major reason behind Bengal poll debacle: BJP

With a renewed focus at the grassroots, the saffron party has decided to impart phase wise training to its booth level workers to stabilize and further its cause and support base. 50,000 booth workers and volunteers are to be trained in the first phase.

Kolkata: The opposition BJP leadership, both at the national as well as state levels are of the opinion that a major reason behind the debacle in the 2021 West Bengal Assembly elections was the lack of adequately trained booth-level party workers and volunteers.

With a renewed focus at the grassroots, the saffron party has decided to impart phase wise training to its booth level workers to stabilize and further its cause and support base. 50,000 booth workers and volunteers are to be trained in the first phase.

Speaking on this issue BJP state vice-President Pratap Bandopadhyay told ETV Bharat that a directive in this regard from the central leadership has already reached the state committee.

“Accordingly, instructions have been forwarded to all the district presidents of the party in the state. For the time being ten booth- levels workers for each both are being trained in a single phase,” he said.

BJP sources said that the decision to conduct these special training workshops for the booth-level workers is the brainchild of BJP’s national president, JP Nadda. For conducting the workshops two teams from BJP’s IT cell and media cell have come to the state from New Delhi.

At the same time, the state BJP president is flying to New Delhi on Saturday. He is supposed to have a meeting with Nadda on Sunday. BJP sources said that the matter of training workshops might also be discussed in the meeting.

It is learnt that the training will be conducted for all the 78,000 polling booths in the state. A target has been set for training 50,000 booth-level workers in the first phase. In the next phase, 10,000 booth-level workers will be trained. The state leadership has also been directed to regularly attend these training sessions. Some of these workshops have already started. These workshops will be conducted in all the 39 organizational districts of BJP.

These training sessions will continue for the next six months. After the completion of the first three months, those attending the workshops will have to appear for an examination. In short, BJP is trying to field only selected and well-trained booth level workers in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.