Nothing prevents YSRCP from enlisting volunteers — to segregate households based on party affiliation and then woo them.
The image from the 'Our Trust is YS Jagan' campaign is recreated for representation only. (South First)
The elections in Andhra Pradesh for 175 Assembly and 25 Lok Sabha seats are nearing: The state will go to the polls on 13 May, which is barely a month away.
The ruling YSRCP and the Opposition parties, including NDA partners TDP-JSP and the Congress-led INDIA-bloc partners, are actively engaging in their efforts to attract voters.
But, the 13-year-old YSRCP appears to have unquestionable advantage, with its army of 10 lakh workers that it established since coming to power in 2019.
Nearly 2.56 lakh village and ward volunteers, 1.34 lakh village and ward secretariat employees from the government, 5.2 lakh gruha saradhis, and 45,000 in-charges are active in Andhra Pradesh.
In a letter on 30 March in response to a complaint filed by the NGO, Citizens for Democracy, the Election Commission of India (ECI) barred the volunteers from discharging any duties of cash incentive disbursement of door-to-door welfare-scheme to beneficiaries.
It also ordered them to deposit any electronic device issued by the government to the district election officers (DEOs) until the end of the Model Code of Conduct (MCC).
Earlier, the ECI issued guidelines on 14 February in response to complaints from Opposition parties and the NGO. These guidelines stated that village and ward volunteers should not be deployed in any election-related tasks, nor should they act as polling agents for any candidate.
Additionally, the ECI barred village and ward secretariat employees from engaging in political activities. These employees were assigned as Booth Level Officers (BLOs) for preparing electoral works and were tasked with only miscellaneous duties on polling day.
However, in reality, the restrictions do not entirely prevent the YSRCP from collaborating with volunteers for voter profiling. The YSRCP is able to woo volunteers to work directly for them by resigning from their post, as there is no ban on those who have quit the system.
Alternatively, they can engage in indirect assistance without resignation, through the concept of “Volunteer Connect”, thereby circumventing the ECI restrictions.
An independent investigation conducted by South First over a week in the Vijayawada and Machilipatnam Lok Sabha constituencies revealed how voter-profiling was being conducted in the final electoral list by party workers in nexus with the volunteers across the state.
This nexus aims to assist the party by segregating voters into three groups: YSRCP-inclined, Opposition-inclined, and neutral. This is expected to allow them to tailor their strategies accordingly to woo these different voter segments, as the party sets the target of achieving 60 percent voting for YSRCP in every booth.
It was in May 2019 that the new YSRCP government, led by YS Jagan, came into power in the state. Within a month, the state launched a scheme via Government Order (GO) 104, appointing village and ward volunteers.
The volunteers were to be paid ₹5,000 each and assigned to 50-70 households for delivering around 25 welfare services door to door. More recently, on YS Jagan’s birthday, the government announced a ₹750 hike in their emoluments from 1 January, 2024.
As per the state government portal, there were 2,55,713 village and ward volunteers.
Introducing another system in April 2020, the government created a new department — of village and ward secretariat employees — through GO 33.
The secretariats, consisting of panchayat secretaries and functional assistants would ostensibly be responsible for aiding and assisting gram panchayats in performing their functions while preserving their autonomy. Each person in the secretariat would perform department-specific roles such as digital assistant, welfare assistant, and horticulture assistant.
There were at least 1.34 lakh secretariat employees with 15,004 secretariats at the village and municipality levels, with salaries ranging from ₹15,000 to ₹25,000.
For both volunteers and the village and ward secretariat system, an amount of ₹3,858 crore was earmarked in the 2023-2024 budget.
On the other hand, the gruha saradhis were announced by YSRCP in December 2022 and trained as part of the campaign called ‘Ma Nammakam Nuvve Jagan‘, which roughly translates to “Our trust is Jagan”.
The gruha saradhis visited every house after campaigning for Jagan began in April 2023, explaining the schemes he launched and “gathering” data about the level of satisfaction with the incumbent government.
In this exercise, the gruha saradhis, on par with the volunteers, were able to identify those who were happy with the incumbent government and those who were not. At least two to three gruha saradhis are appointed for every 50-70 households — ie, for every volunteer.
Incidentally, as per the YSRCP’s instructions, the volunteer in the initial days introduced the gruha saradhis as YSRCP caretakers and problem-solvers for the beneficiaries.
The complete ban on volunteers in the poll duties stemmed from their selection process, which involved interviews by a committee consisting of the Mandal Parishad Development Officer (MPDO), tahsildar, and extension officer in the Panchayat.
Since there were no written exams for these positions and appointments were based solely on interviews, allegations arose that the posts largely accommodated YSRCP workers.
Jagan terming the volunteers his “army” and “star campaigners” only fuelled these suspicions.
On the other hand, the secretariat employees did not face a complete ban from the ECI, as they were recruited through examinations conducted by the Andhra Pradesh Public Service Commission (APPSC) and are considered on par with government employees.
An old adage goes: “An ant may well destroy a whole dam.” At the grassroots level, volunteers have an understanding of the beneficiaries. They have been playing a crucial role since May 2019 in disbursing welfare schemes and services to the public at their doorsteps.
Over the past five years, at the grassroots level, they have built rapport with their daily interactions, as they are already familiar with the households assigned to them from the same village.
Their support is in high demand, as these volunteers assist parties in reaching out to voters, appear to have the potential to either build or destroy electoral fortunes.
So, the ban imposed by the ECI has limited impact, as YSRCP continues to reach out to volunteers to garner support and bolster their electoral fortunes.
The ruling party, it seems, made no delays in approaching these volunteers. YSRCP is said to have appealed to the volunteers to resign from their current positions and provide direct support to the party. This comes with compensation for their salary for the next two months, and assurance to reinstatement them after the formation of the new government.
However, as per the volunteers and the YSRCP leaders in the Vijayawada and Machilipatnam Lok Sabha constituencies approached by South First, not all volunteers were willing to work with YSRCP.
Some fear strict action, such as losing their job or facing legal consequences from the ECI due to scrutiny from Opposition parties, while some others are hesitant to take the risk because they are unsure if YSRCP will return to power.
This was when YSRCP, using stratagem from the poll consulting agency Indian Political Action Committee (I-PAC), designed a plan called “Volunteer Connect” which is part of “Memu Siddham, Maa Booth Siddham“, translates to ‘We are ready, even our booth is ready’.
This plan is considered crucial at the grassroots level in defending the ruling party against the mighty TDP-JSP-BJP alliance in the Opposition.
Just as the foundation of a house is built to transfer its weight or load to the earth to generate a higher level of stability and firmness, the volunteers are deemed to strengthen the YSRCP ground-level structure through their help in the booth committees.
The “booth committees” are a group of members from a political party who operate at individual polling booths during elections and are also responsible for reaching out to voters in their booth.
YSRCP booth committee structure plan as accessed by the South First.
As per the plan, as accessed by South First, the structure has a four-layer format. It starts with the MLA or constituency in-charge, then the booth in-charge of the constituency, then the Mandal in-charge, and finally the booth committees.
Each booth has a booth committee of four people consisting of one booth president and three core-committee members, mandatorily including volunteers and gruha saradhis. In the case of volunteers’ resistance, they are mapped to the gruha saradhis of the booth, and continue to offer indirect support.
There are three to four booths for each secretariat, and each booth will have five to seven volunteers on average as the booth committees are structured so that each booth encompasses 50-70 houses, with five to seven sets each.
South First has learnt that I-PAC employees coordinating with YSRCP leaders in every constituency are guiding them on utilising volunteers. An I-PAC employee’s instruction to a YSRCP leader in Vijayawada was to appoint a ‘point of contact’ (POC) for a volunteer if he/she doesn’t turn up to work directly. This POC should be as close as family members or trust worthy to the candidate, is part of the instructions.
The reticent volunteers, through these POCs, would indirectly meet the candidate regularly to ensure some kind of a personal connection.
As per the instructions, the list of inactive volunteers will be shared with the MLA or party in-charge of the constituency, who will reach out to all of them to inspire confidence in them, with the I-PAC overseeing the process.
The candidates are expected to convince the volunteers that even if they have to be suspended or terminated by ECI, their salary will be taken care of for the next two months, and they will be re-employed the moment YS Jagan returns to power.
A three-time Mandal Parishad President (MPP) from the Vijayawada parliamentary constituency, speaking on condition of anonymity, revealed to South First that booth committees have been formed with the assistance of volunteers to segregate voters.
Volunteers mapped in the booth committee of the YSRC party. (South First/Bhaskar Basava)
The Vijayawada leader said he was instructed to maintain a booth-wise list of all the booths in his Mandal, which includes details of booth committee members and mapped volunteers.
He explained that a meeting was held with the volunteers at the end of March, during which a special lunch was arranged and gifts were distributed to encourage them to work for the party.
“They don’t necessarily need to come out for this, but our booth committee members coordinate over the phone to address any questions,” he revealed.
He even shared that during the scrutiny of the voter list, they marked the voter names with green ticks for YSRCP supporters, blue for neutral voters, and red for Opposition supporters.
Now, they have to corner the neutral and Opposition sympathiser votes as booth committees have a target of a minimum 60 percent vote share (or any specific target defined by the MLA or in-charge), with a special cash prize for the top 10 booth committees in the constituency. He indicated that this was the standard operating procedure (SOP) across the state.
The YSRCP Vijayawada leader suggested that typically village leaders would undertake this task due to their familiarity with local dynamics, but the party was relying on volunteers in the 2024 elections.
He added that the ‘Volunteer Connect’ plan had not been as effective as anticipated, as local leaders were reluctant to participate due to discontent.
The leader explained that the involvement of volunteers had undermined the autonomy of the ground level cadre who are elected representatives of panchayat system and villages’. He alleged that even funds allocated for the panchayats through the 14th and 15th Finance Commissions had been diverted, leaving the cadre without an income.
YSRCP is seeing the ban on volunteers from the disbursement of cash incentives as a ‘blessing in disguise’. The party has been actively reaching out to the volunteers with additional incentives to encourage them to rally behind the party.
Thus far, 1,227 of the 1,500-odd volunteers from the Machilipatnam constituency alone have submitted their resignations from the post and announced they would directly work for the party.
When contacted, some of the volunteers who have resigned in Machilipatnam told South First that they quit in protest against the Opposition parties halting them from disbursing pensions.
Kondababu Bharatraju, a volunteer in the Machilipatnam constituency, said the Opposition parties claimed they were influencing the beneficiaries to favour YSRCP even if they were found casually talking to the beneficiaries. “We have also been stopped from doing public service, and so we decided to resign immediately,” he said.
He said: “From now on, we will work directly with YSRCP, and will also be involved in the booth committees of the party.” Dozens of volunteers who resigned and were working with Kondababu at an undisclosed place in Machilipatnam echoed similar sentiments.
Despite the volunteers denying the receipt of payments in exchange for their support and assurances of reinstatement from YSRCP, sources within the party as well as from I-PAC revealed that an SOP on the payments and reinstatement promise was being followed universally.
According to these sources, volunteers working for the party were indeed being paid salaries, with assurances of reinstatement once YS Jagan reassumed power.
When contacted, Geethanjali Sharma, the joint collector who is currently serving as the in-charge of the Krishna district election authority, informed South First that there was no prohibition on volunteers working with political parties after resigning from their positions. However, she clarified that there was a ban on volunteers engaging in any election-related activities or working with political parties while the MCC was in force.
The investigation and a review of multiple SOP documents by the YSRCP poll consultancy, as well as interactions with YSRCP leaders, appear to show that no apparent barriers are preventing YSRCP from obtaining support from volunteers to segregate households based on party affiliation and later efforts to woo them.
Some volunteers resign and openly declare their support, which is not prohibited by the ECI. Meanwhile, others are influenced by party leaders and continue to provide their services discreetly.
Perhaps due to this, the volunteers share a love-hate relationship with YSRCP and Opposition parties.
Also, there is no doubt about the impact of volunteers on the beneficiaries. Previously, beneficiaries had to endure long queues at village secretariats or assigned points to collect or apply for schemes. Now, whether it’s applying for a scheme, updating details, or receiving rations, everything is delivered to their doorstep, eliminating the possibility of prejudice, bias, or corruption.
Such is the impact of the system that Chandrababu Naidu recently promised doorstep-delivery of social welfare pensions akin to Jagan’s system.
The TDP-JSP combine, which previously criticised the volunteer system, now promises to continue the volunteer system if voted into power. However, resigned volunteers are propagating YSRCP propaganda to beneficiaries, which claims that if Opposition parties are voted in, they will abolish the welfare system.
(Edited by Arkadev Ghoshal)
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