Gandhinagar: The ruling BJP is eyeing a record victory in Gujarat in the 2024 general election, with its state president CR Patil recently urging party workers to ensure its candidates win with a margin of at least 500,000 votes apiece and the opposing candidates lose their deposits.

While the BJP has been winning all 26 Lok Sabha seats in Gujarat since 2014, the party won a record 156 seats in the 182-seat assembly in 2022 despite being in power for more than two decades, Covid-19 and economic distress.

“The target is not really impossible as a five lakh margin will need a total margin of 1.3 crore,” said a BJP functionary, who did not wish to be identified. “The BJP’s margin over the Congress in the 2022 assembly polls was close to 85 lakh. Adding 45 lakh to it is not impossible.”

The BJP has already hit the ground and is reaching out to voters at the booth level, another party functionary said on condition of anonymity. “Out of 51,000 booths in the state, our tally was negative in 15,000 booths. Now while we are reaching out to everyone, special focus is being given to those 15,000,” he said.

While the BJP’s “page committees” have been pressed into service to analyse the causes of the result in detail, the party is also closely monitoring the caste combinations in these booths.

“In the areas where we have not done well, we are preparing a detailed list of the benefits that the communities of those areas have availed from the government over the years,” said the second person, adding that voters are now being reminded of all those benefits to turn the tide further towards the BJP.

“With the page committees now being in place, we can clearly find out who went out to vote and who didn’t and therefore mobilising voters has become much easier,” he said.