How Amit Shah Overhauled BJP Election Machinery In Madhya Pradesh Within Weeks

Home Minister Amit Shah visited Madhya Pradesh twice in the month of July as the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) pulled up its socks for the upcoming elections in the state.

The recent visit included four and a half hours of meeting with party functionaries on Wednesday (26 July) night, followed by a closed meeting with selected leaders on Thursday morning.

The closed meeting involved Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, state BJP president VD Sharma, Union Railways Minister and MP election co in-charge Ashwini Vaishnav and state Home Minister Narottam Mishra.

The motive of this closed meeting was to encourage more open and less diplomatic discussion. However, the leaders did not disclose the details of this meeting.

The involvement of Amit Shah marks an important shift in the BJP's election machinery. It was a divided house until last month but the Home Minister's presence has significantly controlled the infighting among the state leaders.

The first thing Amit Shah did was to clear the confusion around leadership. He affirmed that Shivraj Singh Chouhan will remain the Chief Minister and Vishnu Dutt Sharma the state BJP president.

This was the implementation of a lesson learned from the BJP's defeat in the Karnataka elections earlier this year, where the change of leadership was one of the reasons that put the party in trouble.

However, party insiders say that Sharma was unsuccessful in keeping the cadre together but his removal would have complicated things further.

Hence, the BJP implemented a smart strategy of appointing Union Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar as the convenor of the BJP's State Election Management Committee. This reduced Sharma's functions without directly belittling him.

Notably, Tomar's appointment came (on 15 July) just a few days after Amit Shah's first visit on 11 July.

It is also learned that the Home Minister has strictly directed all leaders to avoid attacking each other publicly.

This will ensure that even in the face of some internal friction, the party will appear united from the outside, which is very necessary to earn the confidence of voters.

During the recent meeting, Amit Shah also approved 15 committees and the inclusion of all important leaders in these committees has been taken care of.

The committees have been formed for ticket distribution, Vijay Yatra, road shows, finance, social media, advertisement, feedback from public, coordination between leaders, manifesto and other election-related work.

Last week, a meeting was convened to discuss the committees' composition, and several prominent figures were in attendance, including Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia, Environment Minister and MP election in-charge Bhupendra Singh Yadav, Ashwini Vaishnav, Narendra Singh Tomar, Shivraj Singh Chouhan, VD Sharma, and other officials.

Following the deliberations, Shah gave his approval for the committee members' selection. He also took stock of the progress made on tasks assigned to state party leaders during his last visit to Bhopal.

The Home Minister has been reviewing party actions and planning further strategies. He asked the state leaders to be more aggressive in promoting the benefits of "Double engine ki sarkaar."

However, Shah's main focus was on keeping the organisation together. Programs like ghar-ghar jhanda (BJP flag on every house) and Kamal (Lotus which is BJP's election symbol) Deepawali (which is on 12 November, in the election month) were also discussed.

A notable BJP leader, speaking on the matter, mentioned that some leaders were advised to prioritise their regional responsibilities over state politics due to unfavorable feedback from the survey.

If more leaders are concentrated on their specific regions, the lesser will be the power struggle in Bhopal and the groundwork will bear fruits for the party.

To build a ground connection, five Vijay Sankalp Yatras are also planned in the month of September. However, their draft will be finalised when Shah visits the state again in August.

For now, it is known that these yatras will start from Ujjain, Gwalior, Jabalpur, Sagar and Chitrakoot. The Ujjain yatra will cover Malwa region, while the Gwalior yatra will move across the Chambal region.

The Jabalpur, Sagar and Chitrakoot yatras will respectively cover Mahakaushal, Bundelkhand and Vindhya regions of the state.

It is also being planned that these yatras will host rallies of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Amit Shah, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and BJP national president JP Nadda among other prominent leaders.

The party had organised Jan Aashirwad Yatras before the 2018 assembly elections in a similar manner but the BJP won 109 of the 230 seats, falling seven seats short of the majority.

However, Amit Shah's efforts can lead the party to victory, as his poll management skills are well known.

He is known to be rational, realistic and ruthless in his approach which enables him to extract the maximum from every contributor.

Currently, Shakti Kendra has been established for booth monitoring and "team Amit Shah" will monitor poll preparations from Delhi.

More visits from Shah are expected to the state in the coming months, to oversee the election campaign.