UP Polls: Ticket aspirants face tough screening in UP elections 2017, Uttar Pradesh assembly election 2017, UPCC, Prashant Kishor, Congress
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- Category: UP Political News
- Last Updated: Tuesday, 26 July 2016 17:35
UP Polls: Ticket aspirants face tough screening in UP elections 2017, Uttar Pradeshassembly election 2017, UPCC, Prashant Kishor, Congress
About a week ago, a sitting MLA from eastern Uttar Pradesh got a phone call from a girl wanting to cross-check his name, address and phone number. The MLA took her for a marketing or survey agent and was about to disconnect when the girl asked him politely, "Are you not serious about contesting election on a Congress ticket this time?"
Startled, he asked, "Who are you and why are you asking me this?"
"I am calling you from the UPCC call centre," she said. "And I am asking you this because you have yet not submitted the 'booth list' even though the last date is just few days away".
The MLA immediately sat up. This was the working of Prashant Kishor.
Never before in the history of Congress have ticket aspirants been asked to undergo such a tough screening and muti-level filtering process just to qualify as an eligible candidate.
Party tickets up until now have always been a matter of loyalty, taking into account caste calculations, money or muscle power and, most importantly, the right connection with the top leadership.
The concept of a political party office affiliated call centre calling up ticket seekers and a professional back office verifying credentials is alien for politicians of the state. But thanks to "PK", things have changed drastically in the Congress party.
On the first floor and second floor of the Congress office at Mall Avenue in Lucknow, a horde of youngsters are busy working the computers and phones in three different rooms that have been especially vacated for them. They are members of Team PK.
These members barely interact with Congress leaders or workers and are trained to be tight-tipped about what they are working on. Their rooms are always closed and the notice pasted on the doors warns, "No Entry".
Three persons, all of them in their early 30s, are in charge of handling this somewhat covert process of screening and weeding out the non-serious ticket seekers. Vinesh Chandel and Robin help in supervising the work being done by Team PK.
Shashank Shukla, from Rahul Gandhi's office, also closely coordinates with Team PK and the Congress.
Congress office is not the only place from where the call centers are operating from to turn the party fortunes around.
Around 150 people, most of them tried and tested in Bihar elections, where they micromanaged the campaign of Nitish Kumar, are toiling day and night to repeat the magic and ensure PK lives up to his reputation of being a "master strategist".
The screening for tickets is a three level process and the first level has already been completed.
All the prospective candidates are required to fill up and submit a form called "booth list".
The aspirants who have completed the first level are supposed to come up with five names per booth. These could also be members of a family who has been a Congress supporter and is now willing to vote and support the party again. Once again, this list is analysed again by calling and verifying the authenticity of the persons.
At the second stage, filtration is even more stringent.
Members from the team of PK will now travel to different parts of the state to do a physical verification, which includes meeting and interacting with ticket seekers as well as the persons whose names have been provided. This is to eradicate any chance of ghost names and duplication. Once that is done, other factors like caste equations, popularity and how long the person has been in the Congress will be taken into consideration.
By now, the list of serious ticket aspirants per seat comes down to four to five per Assembly seat. "These shortlisted candidates will then be meeting the UPCC chief Raj Babbar and screening committee head Nirmal Khatri. Plans are also in place to let these people directly meet Ghulam Nabi Azad and may be Rahul Gandhi as well," a source tells me.
To check the tendency of pocketing the money meant for election campaigning, a new approach is also being planned. Congress observers from other states will be brought to UP to oversee the election related expenditure. Instead of giving direct cash, election materials like banners, posters, flags and pamphlets would be provided by the party.