On November 17, the day Madhya Pradesh went to the polls, cellphones of the BJP's local functionaries rang at 5am.
It was Brahma Muhurta, an auspicious time to start the day. The first wakeup call from the party's state unit alerted the functionaries to the busy day ahead. Sunrise was still 90 minutes away, and chances were that some could have hit the snooze button. A voice message was sent on WhatsApp to reinforce the alert. To rule out chances of non-delivery of the message, a third call was made from the party's call centre.
All those who mattered in each district the party president, the booth management coordinator, constituency chiefs, polling agents and booth presidents were thus woken up. By 6am, provisions were made to ensure that party workers across the state were out on the streets to escort voters to booths and carry out other tasks. The operations were meticulous. For more than a year, cadres had undergone training according to a 15-point programme prepared by Union Home Minister Amit Shah.
When votes were finally counted on December 3, the BJP got more than 48 per cent votes. The party bagged 50 lakh more votes than in 2018, while the Congress, which was supposed to have benefited from anti-incumbency, could manage only 15 lakh more votes. The BJP's planning had made all the difference.
The election machinery that the party had perfected in Gujarat was replicated across three Hindi heartland states-Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh. Electoral arithmetic, combined with Prime Minister Narendra Modi's connect with voters, and the support that Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan received from women beneficiaries of his social welfare schemes, trumped the "vote for change" sentiment that had existed in the months leading to the polls.
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