NEW DELHI: Only seven countries have more population than the BJP’s member-base now, said the party’s working president J P Nadda on Thursday on completion of the membership drive. The BJP has netted 5.81 crore new members.
Nadda said the party would have a total membership base of 18 crores after compiling the data of applications filed offline. Speaking to reporters after a review meeting of the membership drive, Nadda said all the 5,81,34,212 new members have been verified.
“We had set a target of 20 per cent new members from the strength of 11 crores in line with the BJP constitution, but exceeded the target with an overwhelming response leading to over 50 per cent rise in the membership base,” he said.
Nadda said with the completion of the membership drive, the organisational elections would begin. “Elections at polling booth level across the country will be held during October 10-30, followed by polls at districts and afterwards at the state levels. Organisational elections at the national level will be held in December, including for the post of the party president,” he said.
The BJP seemingly saw an overwhelming response to the membership drive, which had been launched on July 6 in West Bengal, where the saffron party netted 80 lakh new members. Nadda said the BJP would cross the one crore mark in the state after the offline application data is fed in the server of the party. Nadda also stated that more than 90 lakh plants were planted across the country during the membership drive.
Claiming that all sections of society responded to the membership drive, Nadda said as many as 6,059 people joined the BJP in the Karna Assembly constituency on Line of Control (LoC) in Kashmir. He exuded confidence that the final tally of the new members would cross 7 crores after all data is verified.
The membership campaign was supported by 1,85,965 full-timers within the party who worked for one week in various parts of the country.
Nadda stated that all voters in 14 polling booths of Patan in Chadasma district of Gujarat became members of the BJP.