Kolkata's influential Bengali daily Anandabazar Patrika has compared the ruling Awami League's 'Road to Smart Bangladesh' campaign to call voters to the polling stations ahead of the upcoming Jatiya Sangsad(JS) elections with the 'booth level management' theory of Amit Shah, one of the top leaders of India's ruling party BJP in 2014.
The comparison was made in a report titled 'Hasina's 'Booth Level Management'?'' in the online edition of the newspaper. The daily mentioned in the report about two and a half lakh workforce has been trained in 300 constituencies through this program 'Road to Smart Bangladesh' who will go door to door on polling day requesting the voters to go to the booth and make necessary arrangements for delivery to the booth. In addition, in a program called 'Offline Campaign' initiated by the National Election Management Committee of Awami League, 'trained campaigners' will go door to door asking voters to exercise their democratic rights.
The report also said that the opposition is now using a new strategy to campaign for a vote boycott by creating an 'apolitical' platform. Awami League organized special training for the workers to deal with it. After Amit Shah became the BJP president, he became active in the new system of 'booth-based management' in the BJP organization across the country. In that, the responsibility of the voters on each page of the voter list was on one BJP leader. In Sheikh Hasina's party, local leaders are also being given 'area-based responsibilities' to bring voters to the booth, some news reports have claimed.