5
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Uttarakhand has stepped up its grassroots mobilisation ahead of the upcoming Assembly elections, with the party combining its Shakti Kendra network with community outreach initiatives such as the state-backed ‘Aangan Ka Milan’ programme to strengthen its presence at the booth level.
A senior BJP source told Read that the party’s organisational machinery is being activated through regular weekly meetings, while in-charges have been appointed for individual Shakti Kendras to supervise ground-level activities and coordinate with local workers. Notably, Shakti Kendras, which function as microorganisational units connecting clusters of polling booths, have emerged as a key component of the BJP’s election preparations in the state. Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami has described the Shakti Kendras as “powerhouses” of the party’s organisational and electoral strategy.
As part of the preparations, the BJP is deploying full-time workers across assembly constituencies to coordinate with Shakti Kendra heads. The objective is to ensure that campaign planning, mobilisation of party workers, re-engagement with senior and veteran workers and public outreach are closely monitored at the local level. The state BJP leadership, headed by party president Mahendra Bhatt, has directed organisational activities to be routed through these localised structures, with the focus remaining on strengthening the party’s presence at every polling booth.
Alongside its organisational mobilisation, the BJP is also seeking to expand its community outreach through the ‘Aangan Ka Milan’ programme, which is being implemented as part of the state government’s ‘Seva Sankalp Abhiyan’.
The programme, spearheaded by Women Empowerment and Child Development Minister Rekha Arya, is being rolled out across 20,067 Anganwadi centres in Uttarakhand. The initiative focuses on engaging directly with women and families at the community level through activities related to maternal and child health, distribution of takehome rations, health checkups and awareness about Central and state government welfare schemes.
Party sources said the BJP’s strategy is to complement large-scale political campaigning with direct engagement at the community level. BJP workers and members of the Mahila Morcha are participating in outreach activities, allowing the organisation to interact directly with beneficiaries and local residents. The BJP is also placing emphasis on constituencies where the party had won by relatively narrow margins in the previous election.
Vinod Chamoli, BJP MLA from Dharampur in Dehradun, told the Sunday Guardian that the party’s organisational machinery was fully activated and that activities under the ongoing ‘Seva Sankalp’ campaign were being carried out effectively. “Our organisation in Uttarakhand is in a very strong position.
This is why we can say that we are ahead of the Congress and are confident of forming the government for the third consecutive time,” Chamoli said. On constituencies where the previous electoral margin was comparatively low, Chamoli said the BJP had begun focused preparations and assigned senior leaders responsibility for such seats. He said the party was particularly concentrating on constituencies where the winning margin was around 5,000 votes, with the objective of increasing its seat tally.
Chamoli also targeted the Congress, saying the Opposition party was relying largely on an anti-incumbency narrative. He argued that the BJP would seek another mandate on the basis of its record during its two terms in government. “Congress is running its campaign on anti-incumbency, but what they are trying to project is less than what we have achieved during our two terms,” he said.
The BJP MLA also accused the Congress of practising “negative politics” while describing the BJP’s approach as developmentoriented. He said the party’s organisational network and grassroots structure in Uttarakhand remained strong and would play an important role in its election preparations. Beyond Shakti Kendras and ‘Aangan Ka Milan’, the party is also using initiatives such as ‘Yuva Shakti Samvad’ and door-to-door outreach to engage specific groups, including young voters, women and beneficiaries of government schemes.
A political analyst told Read that the BJP was combining its organisational network with social outreach programmes to deepen its booth-level engagement. According to the analyst, the Shakti Kendra structure—generally bringing together three to four polling booths—also allows the party to receive local-level feedback on voter sentiment, grievances and the performance of individual booths. The analyst said this decentralised structure enables the organisation to identify local concerns and areas requiring greater attention and make organisational adjustments ahead of the elections.
The analyst added, the BJP’s Uttarakhand unit is therefore focusing on a combination of organisational consolidation, booth-level mobilisation and direct community outreach, seeking to translate its extensive party network into sustained engagement with voters across the state.