With focus on young leaders, MP BJP brings mobile application for organisational expansion

A common grumble among party workers of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s Madhya Pradesh unit has been that because the Shivraj Chouhan administration has been in power for four consecutive terms, a section of the younger leaders in the party has been waiting in the wings for too long. To counter that, as the party gears for a tight fight in the state, it is betting big on young leaders. Part of the move, party insiders from the state unit said, is a key push on a digital app for organisational expansion fashioned on the BJP’s Saral app.

Known as the Sangathan app in Madhya Pradesh, the localised version of the app has managed to digitise records of over 38 lakh people – including all the position holders across the booth committees in the state as well as some key voters. In all, the state has over 64,100 booths. Through the app, senior leaders like the state president, chief minister and the upper hierarchy of the party in the Centre can speak to the workers in real time. On June 27, during his digital rally, PM Modi is set to address the workers through the local version of the app.

Also Read | 'Modiji, his father...': Congress leader's jibe ahead of PM's MP visit draws BJP's ire

State president BD Sharma said that there is a concerted effort to rope in younger leaders. “By now, we have ensured that over 1070 mandal presidents are below 35 years of age. For us, leaders for the next 10 years are already in place,” Sharma said.

On the app, leaders working on its development said, the digitalisation of the booth structure was the focus. On it, all the party’s booth presidents, booth mahamantris, booth local agents, two panna pramukhs per booth as well as members of the booth committee, panna committee are connected.

“When we say digitisation, we are not collecting just the name, voter ID or phone numbers, we are also collecting details such as education, occupation, Aadhaar number as well as details of any Centre or MP government scheme of which the person is a beneficiary, it at all,” Aman Shukla, chief of the state’s IT cell, said.

Shukla said that they are hosting and monitoring events of the party on the platform, something which the original app, Saral, is yet to do. “On a real-time basis, we can monitor the engagement of events. And, at one go, we can send a notification to all of the 38 lakh people connected on the app,” he said.

Sharma said that the app will now come in handy in highlighting a key scheme launched ahead of the elections by CM Chouhan – the women's benefits scheme Laadli Behna Yojana – among women voters. “It is now the party’s responsibility to tell voters about the scheme; last month, through the app, we managed to mobilise 25,000 voters at one instance,” he said.