BJP needs 2 crore members each month to reach target

NEW DELHI: BJP wants to be the largest party in the world and aims to have a membership base of nine crore by the end of March 2015, beating Communist Party of China that boasts of eight crore members.

The BJP’s membership drive, launched on November 1, has managed to attract one crore members in one month. Although Prime Minister Narendra Modi congratulated the party workers for their efforts on Twitter, senior BJP leaders said that this was less than satisfactory. “If we have to reach nine crore membership base in the next four months we have to double our efforts. From now on we need two crore members each month,” said a BJP leader.

Party president Amit Shah is personally supervising the campaign, wanting to increase BJP’s presence in states where the party traditionally does not have too much presence. The focus is on states in the northeast and the seven Coromandel states — the coastal states that include Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Orissa, West Bengal, Maharashtra and Kerala. “The push for seven Coromandel states is Amit bhai’s dream project,” the leader revealed.

Party vice-president Vinay Sahasrabuddhe, who is handling the membership campaign, is confident of achieving the target. He said the drive had got tremendous response.

“The use of technology, transparency and democratisation of the process has redefined political party recruitment,” Sahasrabuddhe told ET.

The campaign was aimed at involving people in nation-building. The campaign was working on the slogan ‘Sashakt BJP, Sashakt Bharat’ (strong BJP, strong India) and the tagline being ‘Saath aayein, desh banayein’ (come with us and build the nation).

Although the party was using traditional methods of making new members, over 95% members had used the “missed call method” to join BJP.