NEW DELHI: In its recently concluded membership drive, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Delhi has enrolled about 10 lakh new members. Harshdeep Malhotra, co-convener of the campaign, which ended on August 20, said the party had successfully managed to reach the 17.5 lakh mark, surpassing its existing strength by about 3.5 lakh.
“The verification of newly registered members is being done by the national team and soon, the local unit will get the report. The authentication is mere formality as the entire process was technically sound. Details of each caller were also registered manually. We may have category-wise break-up of fresh enrolment after verification,” said Malhotra.
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Previously, the Delhi BJP had signed up 14 lakh members. With the completion of the exercise, the party has now begun the process for making ‘active’ members. For any post in the party and to contest an election on a party ticket, one has to be an active member, for which the fee is Rs 200. As per the records of the last membership drive, the state unit of BJP has 22,000 active members.
Malhotra said all districts and blocks had been given prescribed forms to sign up new active members and the deadline for the same is September 11.
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“A three-member committee has been set up in district to verify a request for the active membership. One needs to fill the form and get it signed by the district president, who will also give his comment. The form will finally be sent to the committee for consideration,” said Malhotra, who was also east Delhi mayor.
“The numbers show that policies of Prime Minister Narendra Modi have successfully made us to win the trust of the people. Public welfare schemes have impressed people. Besides our state leadership and president Manoj Tiwari, the credit should be grass root level workers,” Rajesh Bhatia, general secretary of Delhi BJP.
The national membership campaign was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Varanasi on the birth anniversary of Syama Prasad Mookerjee, on July 6.