As its membership drive came to an end on Thursday, the BJP was faced with a bigger task of ensuring the commitment of the new members to the party.
With around two-third of the over 10.43 crore primary members being new comers in a technology-driven campaign, the BJP will not only verify their membership but also engage with them to ensure the number translates into dedicated party workers.
In West Bengal, where the party’s membership figure has gone up by 6.5 times, the BJP’s hopes of making inroads were shattered in the recent civic polls, which were swept by the Trinamool Congress. Party president Amit Shah said the results would have been different if the state police was not deployed during the polls. “When central forces oversee the polls, the results will be different,” he said at a press conference here.
“Now for 90 days we will have the sampark abhiyaan in which we will provide literature about the party from Shyama Prasad Mookerjee to Narendra Modi, the BJP’s principles and the Modi government’s achievements,” Shah said. After that the party would launch a major training programme for its 15 lakh workers for another three months, he said.
Six years ago, when the BJP undertook the membership drive, the application form for primary membership had a pledge on commitment to integral humanism as the party’s philosophy, nationalism and national integration, democracy, Gandhian approach to socio-economic issues leading to establishment of an egalitarian society free from exploitation, positive secularism (sarva dharma Samabhava), value based politics, concept of secular state and nation not based on religion.
Asked how the party would verify the background of members, Shah said the panel which undertakes their scrutiny will approve their membership.
According to sources the verification process will get to the bottom of the profile of the new comers basically to identify the non-serious members. Later, the party would put camps in each mandal– 15,000-17,000– for training them. By September, the entire process will be completed, they said.
Under the membership drive, Uttar Pradesh recorded the highest at 1.82 crore followed by Gujarat at nearly 1.2 crore.
