BJP vice-president and former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan on Friday announced that the mammoth membership drive of the party would commence from July 6, the birth anniversary of Bharatiya Jana Sangh’s founder Syama Prasad Mukherjee.
Even as the membership drive would go cross-country, the BJP leader said some States would come in for special focus. This includes West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Ponducherry, Odisha, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Sikkim and Jammu & Kashmir. There would be booth-level focus in all the States.
Addressing a Press conference a day after he was put in-charge of the membership drive, Chouhan said the party has to pass many milestones and in this endeavour it would like to add 20 per cent more- 2.20 crore-members this time round. “But this target is the minimum required, we are aiming at much bigger target,” he said.
The membership drive that BJP started last time in 2015 had culminated with the party turning the largest political party in the world with a membership of over 11 crore.
Choudhan said Mukherjee’s birthday, July 6, was the most auspicious day to start the membership drive campaign and party has already drafted in-charge and deputy-in-charge from each State to assist the drive and their names would be out by Friday night.
He said a detailed preview of the task would be done on June 17 when party president Amit Shah too would attend the discussions. On June 26, the State in-charge and deputy in-charge of each state for the membership task would meet here for further deliberations.
The BJP leader said though Prime Minister’s popularity coupled with the sharp strategy of Shah led BJP to an stupendous victory in the Lok Sabha poll, the hard world of workers at all level from booth to State-level contributed to this great success. He said there was need to strengthen party organisation from the lowest level to the highest tier.
He said membership is always at the core of party’s expansion plan. He said along with BJP’s slogan ‘sabka Saath Sabka Vikas’ would go organisation’s other ‘mantra’ “Sarvsparshi BJP and sarvayapi BJP”.
Chouhan said after the Lok Sabha polls, the BJP has identified “weak booths” and decided to deploy party workers for special membership drives in all such booths. He said membership drive would be by missed-call but this time party would also get forms filled by the new members.
