Membership drive is not for poll victories, but to make new members partners in nation-building, says Shaw

After a concerted effort to enhance its membership which has crossed 11 crore, the BJP on Sunday claimed that it has increased its footprint in south India with threefold to 20 times increase in membership.

Holding its third “maha-samparak’’ (mega contact) campaign here after Kolkata and Kanpur in as many weeks, party president Amit Shah said that with the “missed call’’ approach on mobile phone, the party has quickly enhanced its membership and strengthened itself in southern States such as Kerala, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.

To emphasise the point, the party had held its last national executive meeting in Karnataka and is now preparing for the upcoming panchayat elections in Kerala.

Mr. Shah claimed that the membership drive was not to gain poll victories, but to make new members partners in “nation-building.”

The party has, in a systematic manner, first made members, then made door-to-door contact with the new members and finally selected those who had enrolled over 100 members to train them in the party ideology and government achievements.

The party conducts organisational elections every six years when every member has to renew his/her membership and new members are inducted.

It is obvious that through its membership drive the BJP is eyeing expanding its vote share in elections.

Mr. Shah said after the election of the BJP in the Lok Sabha elections, the party had won almost every Assembly poll. But wherever it did not, it increased its vote share.

“Workshops will be held in August for party workers and new members as our idea is not just to strengthen the party at state or district level but also at the mandal level,’’ party general secretaries Ram Lal and Bhupendra Yadav later said at a press conference.