India Begins Its Brush With Political Crowdfunding
The Congress is turning its 40-day nationwide crowdfunding drive from October 2 to November 14 into an opportunity to reach out to the masses through programmes including the “Congress sahyogi (companion)” project, a counter to BJP’s ‘panna pramukh’ or electoral roll page in-charge model, to mobilise voters.
As part of the crowdfunding drive, Congress members are visiting houses with vouchers containing receipts of Rs 50, Rs 100, Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 to seek donations to “tide over the party’s fund deficiency vis-a-vis BJP’s deeper pockets”. While opinion is divided on whether the party that ruled India for over 50 years, including 10 uninterrupted years from 2004, is actually in deep financial trouble, the party has set several targets during the drive beyond resource mobilisation, said the people cited earlier.
In a first-of-its kind Congress project, the party leadership from PCCs to mandal committees has been directed to launch the ‘Congress sahyogi’ project, as part of which at least 10 party activists will be deployed at each assembly booth, with each given charge of 20 families in the area.
The sahyogis will have to be in constant touch with the families, positively intervene in every issues these families face — from local civic issues to political and social issues — as their constant supporters, with the aim of ensuring that voters in the targeted families reach the polling booth and vote for the party. A group of 1,000 Congress sahyogis will be put under an area booth coordinator.
The party high command has conceived the Congress sahyogi project in response to the BJP’s panna pramukh model.
Relying on a plan perfected in the last three assembly elections in Gujarat, the BJP’s parent organization, the RSS, created an army of panna prabharis in Uttar Pradesh to focus on approximately 60 voters each.
Each prabhari was given responsibility for a panna — which literally means a page, but in this case referred to a page in the electoral rolls. Each page in the voters’ list has the names of between eight to 12 families. Every panna prahabhai (also called a panna pramukh) was required to focus on these families.
“While the Congress project is being launched through a fun-mobilisation drive, it is designed to expand and consolidate the party network in the run-up to the polls so that a dedicated Congress worker is in constant touch with each of the families in the country,” said a leader involved in the implementation.
Alongside, local leaders have been directed to launch a party membership drive, exclusively focusing on enrolling first-time voters. Party volunteers engaged in fund mobilisation have been asked to distribute specially made pamphlets in local languages on Congress “chargesheet” against the government, highlighting issues such as Rafale, spiralling oil prices, mounting NPAs, farm distress, unemployment, Sangh Parivar’s “divisive agenda” and attacks on weaker sections.
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