BJP Sets Up Election War Rooms in Every State for 2019 Lok Sabha Polls

The Bharatiya Janata Party is creating an election “war room” in each state ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha polls; most of them were due to be operational by August 15, three party leaders aware of the plan said. One leader said the war rooms would differ in size from state to state.

What the war rooms will do

The chief minister of a BJP-ruled state, speaking anonymously, said the instruction was to have the facilities running by August 15 and that they would expand as the election drew closer. A third leader said the facilities would also serve the party in this year’s assembly polls in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh.

The state units will build voter databases and send campaign material and senior leaders’ tour schedules to voters by email and social media. A leader said the aim was to decentralise war room work, give the campaign a local flavour and track every polling booth.

How they are set up

Called “state contact centres” and located in each state capital, they will pass data specific to their regions to the central war room at the BJP’s former headquarters at 11, Ashoka Road in Delhi. The layout drawn up by the party leadership includes:

• one calling agent for every 500 “shakti kendra” chiefs (a shakti kendra is a group of 2-3 booths);
• three data-entry operators and one supervisor;
• a 3×3-feet workstation for each staff member;
• laptops, a colour printer, a server room and a 10mbps internet lease line;
• a meeting-cum-training room, a small cabin and biometric attendance to control entry.

Background

In 2014, over 550 million people voted at 930,000 polling stations, and more than 1.1 million used postal ballots. The BJP won a majority with 172 million votes, against 107 million for the Congress.

What happened next

In the 2019 Lok Sabha election the BJP won 303 of the 543 seats and the Congress 52.

Originally published on 20 August 2018. Rewritten on 9 October 2026.

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