Indelible link: Meet the foot soldiers parties count on

Call them agents of mass mobilization. These countless, dedicated foot soldiers of democracy go the extra mile during the polling season to get voters to the booths. While the BJP calls them panna pramukhs, the Congress calls them booth workers. Lifeblood of an electoral strategy, they are the diligent propagators of their party’s narratives.
With just 48 hours remaining for Lok Sabha polling in Gujarat, BJP’s 45-year-old booth in charge Vijay is busy seeking updates from the 25-odd page samiti members or panna pramukhs in the western part of Ahmedabad.Last week, he had instructed them to ensure Ayushman cards were “delivered with military precision” to voters above 70 years.
Often called the muscle of the BJP’s electoral machinery, the panna pramukh system, which was first tried successfully in Gujarat by the BJP, was replicated in Uttar Pradesh in the 2014 and 2019 general elections and in the assembly elections in UP, Karnataka and West Bengal in 2017, 2018 and 2021 respectively.
A technique introduced by Union home minister Amit Shah and fine-tuned by Gujarat BJP president C R Paatil, the term “panna” refers to a page from the voter list and a “pramukh” is in charge of that page. An estimated 75 lakh members form 15 lakh panna samitis (committees) of the BJP — one samiti has five members. “Earlier, one page of the electoral roll, with 30-32 names, was assigned to one panna pramukh. We now assign one page to a fivemember panna committee. The members are from different families,” says Vijay.
“The panna samiti has to ensure that at least 60% of voters on the page assigned to them are persuaded to vote in BJP’s favour,” says a senior party functionary. A couple of days before polling and even on the day of polling, the panna pramukhs will follow up with voters through phone calls and coordinate with the BJP’s ward pramukh
to arrange for their travel to the booths.
“In the 2022 assembly , we defeated the Congress by 80 lakh votes using this strategy,” adds the functionary. The Congress on the other hand appoints three volunteers per booth which translates into 1.5 lakh vol- unteers for more than 51,000 booths in the state, says party spokesperson Manish Doshi, adding: “After appointing panna pramukhs in 2017, we have once again tried the concept on important seats this year.”
What mahila morchas do
The second major weapon in the BJP’s arsenal is its mahila morcha (the women’s wing) that plays a crucial role in influencing homemakers and shaping discussions at the family’s dinner table. The party has over a hundred thousand mahila morcha members statewide. The morcha begins its groundwork in residential societies months ahead of polls, helping women get govt aid and getting their civic problems resolved.
The art of persuasion
Data from the Election Commission’s website provides booth-wise information of voters such as their name, father’s name, number of family members, age and gender,” says Anand, a 34-year-old panna samiti member from Paldi.
He adds, “Using this, we can discern the caste and demographic profiles at each booth. Algorithms have been developed to associate surnames with castes, aiding in data cleansing process, which includes updating on voters who have changed addresses or are dead. This exercise is largely carried out by the panna pramukhs since they work at the grassroots level.”
The BJP categorizes the voters listed on a page into three segments: Category A comprises definite BJP supporters, B has undecided voters and C has non-BJP voters. The panna pramukh is trained to persuade those in Category C to reconsider their stance and move to Category B and to encourage those in Category B to firmly support the BJP, thereby moving them to Category A. The force multiplier in BJP’s game is microtargeting voters through WhatsApp groups, largely managed by mobile pramukhs who work in tandem with panna pramukhs.
What sets BJP’s panna samiti and panna pramukh apart in the digital era is its engagement with voters even after polls.
“In the current set-up, we have 30 voters on each page and as a panna pramukh, I often meet each member on the page assigned to me to keep myself abreast of voters’ needs and grievances. Starting from our state party president to senior leaders, all are panna pramukhs in their respective constituencies,” explains Surat city BJP president Niranjan Zanzmera. Dharmesh Patel, a BJP panna pramukh from Subhanpura in Vadodara, told TOI, “Since we already know who are the voters we are responsible for, our task is to maintain regular contact with them. They too can reach out to us in case they have civic problems to be resolved,” he says.
Analyzing past trends
Patel and others like him also form Whatsapp groups with voters to carry out online canvassing for the party. “Analysis of booth-wise voting trends from the past five elections, which typically involves 1,000 or 1,100 votes, allows us to understand how different surnames vote. WhatsApp groups allow page pramukhs and boothlevel leaders, dubbed ‘WhatsApp captains’, to disseminate tailored messages to specific socioeconomic groups,” says Patel.
In the past elections, the party utilized electricity consumption data to identify socio-economic clusters. A household with three airconditioners will use more electricity. This sort of data is verified on ground by panna pramukhs before microtargeting voters in those clusters with tailored Whatsapp messages. For example, the party will send messages related to GST to families that fall in higher income brackets instead of someone living in a poor locality. Messages from the party range from how govt schemes have benefitted families, explanation of party’s ideology, memes, and data and infographics to help voters win arguments.
On a more localized level, BJP panna pramukhs share party messages with residential societies, office groups and alumni networks, in contrast to Congress’s approach of circulating messages from its leaders. “We also hold monthly tiffin meetings with the locals and party functionaries. Influencers like lawyers, doctors and professionals from specific castes are engaged to sway voter opinion,” says Anand.
The Aam Aadmi Party in the state boasts 11,000 WhatsApp groups. The party’s office-bearers said their WhatsApp channel has over 22,000 followers, “the second largest for any party in Gujarat”. “Social media conveners at the state, district, taluka and gram panchayat levels spread information about the party,” an AAP source said.
With inputs from Yagnesh Mehta in Surat and Sachin Sharma in Vadodara