Baghel in Assam to help Congress replicate his poll winning model

Chief minister Bhupesh Baghel has been camping in poll-bound Assam with his team from Raipur as Congress seeks to replicate its success in the 2018 Chhattisgarh elections through effective poll management up to the booth level, party functionaries aware of the matter said.

Chhattisgarh Congress leaders campaigning in Assam said Baghel’s team has been involved in strategising for the polls with local leaders and has helped the local leadership to develop a booth-level strategy.

“We are replicating the Chhattisgarh model where the party had a different strategy for each booth depending on local issues,” said a leader, requesting anonymity. The leader added a team of 55 trainers from Chhattisgarh has covered about 115 constituencies of Assam for the first phase of training to booth-level workers. The second phase of training has recently started.

“The aim is to mobilise the voters at the booth-level… The workers are given the training to identify Congress [supporters] in their area, about voters lists and other important aspects...,” said a strategist in Baghel’s team, requesting anonymity.

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Congress’s Chhattisgarh lawmaker Vikas Upadhyay has been in Assam for over three months and Baghel’s advisors Vinod Verma, Ruchir Garg, and Rajesh Tiwari for about 45 days, said a second leader.

Baghel is considered close to Rahul Gandhi. Another aide of Gandhi, former Union minister Jitender Singh, is the party’s Assam in-charge. “It is clear that Rahul has shown faith in his close confidantes [Baghel and Singh] to deliver Assam for the party,” said a third Congress leader in Delhi, requesting anonymity.

On Monday Baghel, said the Congress will bag over 100 seats in the 126-member Assam assembly. “People of Assam vested a lot of faith in the BJP, but they wasted five precious years,” he said. “Prime Minister Narendra Modi promised that they would seal the Bangladesh border. However, the issue of cow-smuggling and undocumented Bangladeshis is just the same. Hence, people have faith in Congress, and we had delivered in the past also.”

Baghel underlined the need for the party to ensure proper coordination with the ground-level workers for the victory. Party leaders said Baghel has ensured that people from all castes are there in the booth level committees to deliver the message that Congress is for all in Assam and to counter the BJP’s polarisation agenda, another leader said.

Congress leader Shailesh Nitin Trivedi, who has been to Assam, said over 100 Congress workers and leaders from Chhattisgarh have visited the poll-bound state in the last two months.

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Party leaders said a large number of Chhattisgarhi people migrated to Assam in 1890 and 1900 and were mostly employed in tea gardens. Chhattisgarh minister Amarjit Bhagat, who is fluent in Kuduk, the language of tea-workers from Chhattisgarh, has been stationed in upper Assam to reach out to them.

Upadhayay said Congress has an edge over the BJP. “In last three months, we have mobilised our ground workers and focused on ... party workers, raising issues through protests and ...[a] social media campaign. Once this started in Upper Assam, it percolated in other parts also.”

Parivesh Mishra, a political commentator, said after losing three elections in a row, the Congress in Chhattisgarh came up with some innovative and out-of-the-box training techniques for its cadre, which worked in 2018 assembly polls. “Baghel is among a few sitting chief ministers of the party and has access to resources to manage polls.”

BJP leader Gauri Shankar Srivas said the Baghel government has misled Chhattisgarh’s people and no promise has been fulfilled. “They are misleading people in Assam and nothing else. The people of Assam should understand that Baghel and his team is working as an ATM [automated teller machine] in Assam.”