The RJD has come up with a blueprint to strengthen itself at the grassroots and have enough money muscle to take on the BJP in Bihar in a better manner.

It has decided to have booth-level committees as primary units in place of panchayat-level committees that were the basic units of the party across the state till now. Apart from increasing the party’s reach, this will help in having a better organisational and administrative structure in place.

Sources in the RJD said the decision came after party leader Tejashwi Prasad Yadav realised that the party fared exceptionally well during the 2020 Assembly elections in districts where the party was active at the booth level due to personal efforts of the local leaders, but performed averagely in areas where this was not the case.

“Our party swept the Assembly constituencies in districts such as Buxar, Kaimur, Rohtas and Bhojpur where our supporters were active at the booth level. State unit president Jagdanand Singh had taken personal interest in activating them and it gave favourable results. This motivated us to have booth-level committees instead of panchayat-level committees as our basic unit,” RJD assistant chief national electoral officer Chitranjan Gagan told The Telegraph.

“We also realised that the BJP has a robust booth-level structure in place in Bihar, which proved helpful for it in the polls. Our party has the masses, but lacks a proper ground-level structure. So we will now have committees at the level of all polling booths in the state. They will help expand the party at the grassroots and also uproot the BJP,” Gagan added.

The RJD won 75 seats in the 2020 Assembly elections as part of the Grand Alliance and emerged as the largest party, but failed to form the government after falling short by a few seats.

It now has 76 MLAs in the 243-member lower House, while the BJP with 77 is the largest party after poaching Vikassheel Insan Party legislators. Chief minister Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal United (JDU) is at the third position with 45 MLAs.

The RJD has also opened the doors for “active membership” of the party on payment of Rs 1,000. Earlier, a person could become an active member only after enlisting 25 primary members.

Only active members are eligible to hold positions in the party right from the panchayat and block to district, state and national levels.

Primary members have to pay Rs 10 as membership fee.

“After becoming an active member, a person will still have to enlist 25 primary members, but only afterwards. The move undertaken on the directions of Tejashwi ji will not only attract enthusiastic people to the party, but also help gather funds to run various political activities,” Gagan said.

Currently, the party is running a membership drive, which will end on June 30. It aims to have 1 crore members in the state.

The RJD conducts membership drives every three years in which the existing memberships are renewed and new members are added.

At present, it claims to have 86 lakh members. The party’s organisational elections will be held later this year.