New Delhi: The setback in the Lok Sabha election has not deflated the morale of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and the party’s strong foundation will ensure it is in power in the country for the next 35 years, Union Home Minister Amit Shah told party workers at a closed-door meeting on Saturday.
Later, at a press conference of BJP’s national office bearers, the party announced its decision to launch a membership drive on 1 September, with a target of adding 10 crore new members. BJP national secretary Vinod Tawde will lead the drive, and BJP national vice president Rekha Patra will be the co-lead.
The BJP’s last membership drive, launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Amit Shah in 2019, is claimed to have catapulted membership to 18 crore, with seven crore new members added. Shivraj Singh Chouhan had led the drive till COVID-19 forced a pause on it.
“The foundation of BJP is strong, and the party has reached its position due to its ideology and the struggle and desire of workers to serve the nation,” Amit Shah is reported to have told party workers.
“Our party never divided like other parties. In states where we lost, we ensured a comeback in the next elections. The BJP is in a position to be in power for the next 35 years, and no party can replace the BJP,” he said.
For the mobilisation drive, Shah said that every party leader should approach every person in society.
Crediting the ideology of Shyama Prasad Mukherjee and Deen Dayal Upadhyay for the BJP scaling new heights, Shah said the Congress mocked the BJP when it won only two seats in the 1984 Lok Sabha elections but that didn’t deter the party. Now that the BJP has assumed power for a third term, he said workers should focus on serving the nation and the struggle — the main pillars of the party.
Briefing the media on Saturday, BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra said new members can join using missed calls, QR codes, the NaMo app, and the BJP’s website.
The BJP, he said, added the QR code method this time and that every state committee will hold workshops for the mobilisation drive.
The party has also selected the mobilisation drive in charge of different states.
Vinod Tawde will look at Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Goa, Dadar Nagar Haveli; Rekha Verma Delhi, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Ladakh; and BJP national general secretary Dushyant Kumar Gautam West Bengal, Sikkim, Tripura and Odisha.
BJP MP Daggubati Purandeswari will look at Kerala, Tamil Nadu; national secretary Arvind Menon Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Andaman; national secretary Vijaya Rahatkar Chhattisgarh, Karnataka; former MP Rajdeep Roy the northeastern states; national secretary Rituraj Sinha Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat; and MP Atul Garg Uttarakhand and Bihar.
On the organisational front, J.P. Nadda completed his term as BJP national president in January this year. The party then extended Nadda’s tenure till the end of June, considering the Lok Sabha elections. He was made Union health minister recently, but the party did not discuss the name of a new working president at the Saturday meeting, sources said.
The party may announce a working president following the BJP-Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh meeting in August in Kerala’s Palakkad.
Nadda became the working president in 2019 and national president in January 2020. Nadda’s appointment had come after Amit Shah, who was heading the party in 2019, became the home minister during the second term of Modi.
A party functionary told ThePrint that just as Nadda served as working president till finally taking over from Amit Shah, the party may go for a working president again.
Nadda, after the first mobilisation drive, had claimed that the BJP, with its 18 crore members, has more people than the population of many countries. On the success of the drive, he had said the party added 5,81,35,242 members through the online mode and 62,34,967 through the offline mode.
(Edited by Madhurita Goswami)
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