Jharkhand elections: On lines of Haryana, BJP sets up Ranchi war room

The BJP has set up a war room in Ranchi for the upcoming Jharkhand assembly elections, on the lines of the one it had put up in Haryana.

The BJP often sets up war rooms during election campaigns to engage with party workers.

Union minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan formally inaugurated the war room at Ranchi's Mohan Complex on Monday. However, the facility has been functioning since October 15. "We had a similar war room during the Haryana election and now we are working in Jharkhand," BJP leader Rohan Gupta told ET. Gupta joined the BJP from the Congress and is now part of the BJP media team.

"The big difference between the BJP and the Congress is that here in the BJP the party workers are committed and know their role in the organisation. It makes our job easier," Gupta said. Around 80-90 people are working in the war room, and they have been assigned specific assembly constituencies. Within the war room, the party has created 14 boxes - one for each of the Lok Sabha constituencies in the state.

"It started with training the booth-level workers. The state has 29,562 polling booths and we are connected to at least three-party workers at each booth," Gupta told ET. Once the initial training is over, the booth-level workers have been tasked with visiting families in their booths and sending a report daily through the 'Saral' app created by the party. Mobilising booth-level workers and engaging them till the voting days keep the momentum high, Gupta said.

"It worked well for the party in Haryana. Our workers are our strength and while the party leaders are leading the campaign, our only job is to remain connected to the ground-level worker," he added.

The war room currently operates from 9.30 am to 9.30 pm. After that, a report is sent to party leaders based on the booth-level data collected. The party tracks the daily performance, like the number of houses visited by the booth workers and the response from the people. The walls of the war room adorn big posters of 'Paanch Pran' (Five Commitments) promised by the party. This is the theme around which the war room operates, Gupta said.

BJP has promised a 'Gogo Didi' scheme to provide financial benefit to women of the state. The war room also reaches out to those women who have filled up a form circulated by the party to show their interest in the scheme.