Bengal's new world order, 100 days on
Days after securing power, the BJP declared it would not allow indiscriminate new membership, an attempt to firewall itself against former TMC leaders.
Near the southern tip of Bengal, a gathering took place in a modest shed adjacent to an ice cream freezer and orange campaign posters. The site, situated off Diamond Harbour Road, was not your average political rally. Around 200 individuals, including mandal and block-level spokespersons and leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), had convened for a day-long session to train on social media campaigns, signature drives, membership logs, and monthly programs.
State-level leaders provided instructions on expanding booth presence, identifying new voters, rickshaw pullers, daily laborers, hawkers, and working women to recruit, handling tough questions on corruption, and determining the ideal length for online posts. The attendees included state-level leaders, old-time BJP workers, fresh recruits, young men with smartphones, women's self-help leaders, panchayat turncoats, and schoolteachers.
Soumen Patra, a BJP leader from Diamond Harbour, explained that those who underwent the training would return to their zones to conduct mandal-wise camps for booth presidents and other ground-level leaders, aiming to prevent outsiders and TMC elements from infiltrating their ranks.
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