The Uttar Pradesh unit of Bharatiya Janata Party is set to achieve its target of enrolling 50 lakh new members in the ongoing membership drive that was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Varanasi on July 6. 

The BJP has booth committees in all 1.63 lakh booths in the state and party workers have been enrolling members at the booth level.

This time, the BJP has not confined the drive to its traditional vote base but is making sure that it reaches out to all sections of society. The party is focusing on Other Backward Classes and weaker sections of society. Muslims are also a prime focus area of the party’s membership drive.

The idea is to expand the party’s vote base in Uttar Pradesh and marginalise caste-centric parties pursuing identity politics before the next Assembly elections in 2022. 

The BJP has combined this exercise with social responsibilities by encouraging tree plantation, Swachh Bharat Mission and water conservation in villages and cities across the country.

“We are celebrating the membership drive as a ‘Sangathan Parv’. Party workers are planting saplings and launching cleanliness drives in villages before asking people to join the party,” said BJP state general secretary Vijay Bahadur Pathak on Saturday.

BJP working president JP Nadda had told the party workers at the launch of the membership drive that the initiative should also have a social responsibility aspect. 

“It should include Swachhata Abhiyan at every booth and a plantation drive as well. Every couple should plant a tree per five members of their family,” Nadda had stated.