BJP's tech-savvy volunteers to reach out to remote voters

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is extensively wielding technology this election season.

After regularly organising chai pe charhca, which engages audiences across multiple locations with a studio from where BJP's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi interacts with them, as well as sending out GPS-equipped vehicles for election campaigning, the party is now assigning tech-savvy volunteers at polling booths. Reason: These tech savvy individuals help party workers execute the campaign strategy on the ground and co-ordinate with the party's headquarter.

The party hopes to rope in lakhs of tech-savvy volunteers from the 11 lakh odd people who have registered online to volunteer with the party.

"There are approximately 9,30,000 polling stations in the country and the party will nominate one volunteer at each booth," said national convenor, BJP Information Technology (IT) Cell, Arvind Gupta.

A polling booth is the lowest unit in the electoral process; each booth represents 600-1,000 registered voters. A polling station comprises multiple booths in a given area.

Apart from helping the the grassroots cadre, these tech-savvy volunteers will send feedback and reports to the party's national headquarters and steps that need to be taken to strengthen the ground effort. "With the help of technology, our workers will be able to reach the electorate in the remotest part of the country with latest campaign materials in the fastest possible manner," another BJP leader said on condition of anonymity.

The campaign material, such as pamphlets in Hindi and English, videos, ringtones, stickers and cards, which these tech-savvy workers will download from the party's website.

They have also been asked to go door-to-door for the 'Ghar Ghar Modi' campaign, distribute party literature and collect donation for the 'Modi-for-PM fund'. During the door-to-door campaign, they will be asked to check if eligible voters have a voter ID card and if not, then the volunteers will have to take the onus of ensuring that the voter gets one.