KOLKATA: The Bharatiya Janata Party’s membership drive in West Bengal that started on July 6 touched the 50 lakh target on Sunday and the party’s state leadership is now aiming to double the number. The national leadership of the saffron camp added another 10 lakh to the target of their West Bengal counterpart on Monday. The state party leaders said they would achieve it within a couple of days.
The BJP started a nationwide membership drive from July which will continue till August 11. The party decided to intensify the drive with its 18 MPs after the session in Parliament is over on August 7.“The MPs will be visiting their constituencies in last four days, from August 8. We are expecting a massive response from the common people and we will meet the target of 1 crore members,” said a senior BJP leader in Kolkata.
Rabindranath Basu, the Bengal in-charge of the membership collection drive in the state, said people are enrolling themselves as BJP members through online, offline and missed call modes. ‘“After compiling the reports received from our district units, we have come to know more than 50 lakh people joined our party as members. The national leadership asked us to meet the target of 60 lakh on Monday, but we will reach 1 crore easily,’’ said Basu.
According to sources, the electors are responding spontaneously and they are queuing up in front of the membership collection units for hours. “The flow was unexpected. We are charging `100 from those who are joining our party as active members. The money is being taken as the subscription charge of our party’s mouthpiece Kamal Sandesh,’’ said another BJP leader.
“Mamata is trying to follow our style to connect to the masses. What she is not realising that electors in Bengal have already started refusing the Trinamool. Her latest outreach drive will prove futile,’’ said Basu.
CPI(M) to protest BJP’s rise in Bengal
The Communist Party of India (Marxist) in Bengal is preparing to launch large-scale protests involving all its wings to combat BJP’s rise in the state. The party’s students, youths, women and farmers wings will protest in August