Over 84 full-time RSS volunteers working in tandem with booth coordinators to seal BJP's fate in Delhi polls

NEW DELHI: Rigorous door-to-door canvassing by thousands of RSS cadre across the country and their efforts to ensure voters go to the polling booths are often cited as the main reasons for BJP’s grand victory in the Lok Sabha elections and in polls in other states. The Delhi Assembly election may not be an exception.
Nearly 84 purnakaliks – full time volunteers of the RSS – are working in tandem with panna pramukhs, booth coordinators of the BJP to get maximum votes sealed for the party in the capital. With one assembly constituency each to monitor, for most of these purnakaliks, called ‘super collectors’ in inner circles, this is the fourth outstation election duty in the last eight months. These men in their late 50s, are mostly from Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Haryana.

"A pracharak like me is unmarried and devoted completely to the sangh. A purnakalik may or may not be married, but is a full time sangh worker who gets sent on assignments but with breaks to be with family in between," explained Arvind Kotegar, an RSS pracharak manning the door-to-door campaigning of the Sangh.

Assigned the responsibility of Chandni Chowk Vidhansab h a , Kotegar, here since November last year is confident of his constituency. He is also the one who manages logistics for the Sangh workers when they arrive for election duty here – lodging in allotted constituency, background data, designation of responsibility and collection of reports. "Many of them – at least 400 of them from Madhya Pradesh want to come and volunteer in Delhi. I am asking them to come after the civic polls gets over in Bhopal."

Like many others, this is the third assignment for Kotegar in the last six months. He was in the villages of Madhya Pradesh during Lok Sabha elections and in Amravati during Maharashtra assembly elections.

"Amravati has never had a BJP MP but we reached out to maximum households and got a BJP MLA this time," he said with a smile.

The BJP under Amit Shah has devised a full-proof plan for its poll coordinators called the panna pramukh strategy. Every constituency divided into several wards is further slotted into area, allotted to a group of volunteers.

Every panna pramukh is given the responsibility of 70 families and details of the mandal, his booth and phone numbers of the voters are maintained in a paper. The panna pramukhs of Delhi were asked to give detailed reports of their booths by the end of this week to party leaders.

But what the RSS Purnakaliks do is slightly different. According to some of them, the focus is not go to every household but to those who will listen to them.The day for a purnakalik begins as early as 9 a.m, aiming to reach 50 families in at least four wards a day. "We tell them to vote for the country. Vote for a party, leader who will take our country to different heights. We talk to them about their problems, try to provide help," said Gaurav Bhatwale, another pracharak from Haryana here.

The Purnakaliks are not questioned by anyone but their responsibilities after field work include collecting news, data about every survey, taking help from analysts and giving feedback to seniors in the sangh who work with the party.