With the Lok Sabha elections approaching fast, the Gujarat Pradesh Congress Committee (GPCC) has gone on an overdrive to strengthen the party at the grassroots. The party has already taken the first step towards this, by forming party units at every election booth level.

In the last three months, the party has been able to cover about 70 per cent of the state under the programme. According to its state-level leaders, nearly 27,000 booth committees of the party have been formed in cities and villages so far. There are over 42,000 polling booths in the state and going by this figure, the party is yet to set up 15,000 more booth committees.

Balubhai Patel, GPCC vice-president, who is the overall in-charge of the appointment of booth committees, said he hopes that the remaining booth committees will be set up by the end of this month.

With each booth committee having a minimum of 10 members, the party hopes to reach each and every voter in the state and explain them the policies and programmes of the party. Each poll booth has an average of 1,000 voters.

Stating that booth committees will act as the grassroots level infrastructure of the party, Patel pointed out that these committees will work as the party's agents and ambassadors in villages and mohallas.

"During elections, we received complaints from party candidates that there were no party workers at the polling booths," Patel said.

According to him, presence of party workers at polling booths plays an important role in turning the percent of polling in favour of the party as also in the outcome of the polls.

"We have also begun the process of the appointment of booth-level agents (BLA) required during elections and we hope to complete it before January, along with completing the setting up of booth committees'', he said. All these exercises will be computerised, Patel added.