India / BJP forms 117-member election management team for 2021 WB polls

New Delhi: With just around five months to go for the 2021 West Bengal assembly polls, the BJP has formed a 117-member election management team. According to reports, it is the biggest election machinery the party has ever put in place in the state.

It is reportedly said that the team has been divided into 31 units, with each tackling a particular aspect of the party's poll preparations during the campaign-coordination, data collection, booth management, and social media management, etc.

"While some cells comprise multiple state leaders, including MPs and MLAs, and have a party veteran in-charge and co-in charge of them, a few cells have just one state leader," said a BJP leader.

The BJP is buoyed by its impressive gains in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections in which it got as many as 40 per cent of the vote share and bagged 18 out of the 42 seats in the state.

It is also said that elections to the 294-member state assembly are expected sometime around April and May.

The state machinery would be working under the supervision of Union home minister Amit Shah and BJP chief JP Nadda. Shah and Nadda are expected to camp in West Bengal for a few days every month till the elections.

The BJP has for the first time sent five of its central leaders to take stock of the party's organisational preparedness up to the booth level.

BJP functionaries said 294 leaders will be arriving in Bengal from Delhi and other states to work with the local unit. They would be part of 45-member teams to be set up for each constituency.