 "Amit Shah")
Bharatiya Janata Party President Amit Shah has approached the Bihar poll preparations with his usual micro-management. "The BJP's 'missed call' membership drive, launched in November 2014 by the party President, has proved to be of foresight as it not only increased our membership but gave us precious data, like phone numbers, of these workers that has helped us reach them," BJP national secretary Shrikant Sharma said.
The BJP enrolled over eight million members in Bihar as part of its nationwide membership drive.
It has data, like addresses and telephone numbers, of 6.5 million members.
The party has tasked these members to contact the 38 million voters in the 18 to 40 age group. They comprise over 55 per cent of the total 68 million electorate.
BJP is also keen to focus on the nearly 10 million first time voters that it hopes will overcome their caste affiliations to vote for Modi's promise of development and a better life.
The party has constituted 11 member teams to be deployed in each of the 62,779 polling booths of Bihar. This comes to 6,90,569 workers.
BJP has deployed 243 'raths' or vans - a van for each of the assembly segment.
These vans, GPS enabled to track their movement, have completed visits to each of the 44,000 villages of the state. The vans are fitted with television sets to screen short campaign films visit seven to eight locations each day.
In Patna, BJP has put up posters and banners at 589 tea stalls to tell people about Narendra Modi's journey from a tea seller to becoming the PM.
Across the state, the BJP has painted its slogans on 1483 buses and 28,943 auto rickshaws. Over 21,000 cycle rickshaws are also being used for campaigning.
The party has subdivided the state into 12 zones. Each zone comprises 3 to 4 districts. Each zone has been entrusted to a senior minister or party leaders to oversee poll preparations from now to the end of the five phase elections.
Bihar has 38 districts. Ministers deployed are J P Nadda, Ravi Shankar Prasad, Thavar Chand Gehlot, Radha Mohan Singh, Narendra Singh Tomar, Giriraj Singh, Ram Kripal Yadav
The PM is scheduled to address at least 20 rallies in Bihar. He will address a rally in Banka on Friday, and three more rallies on October 8 in Begusarai, Munger and Samastipur. The party plans to make public the dates of rest of the rallies in due course.
