KOLKATA: With eyes set on the next assembly polls less than an year from now, the West Bengal unit of BJP on Friday launched a membership drive in the state and vowed to overthrow the TMC government from power in the upcoming election.
Christened 'Amar Poribar, BJP Poribar' (My Family, BJP family), the drive was launched here by the party's state unit chief, Dilip Ghosh, in the presence of other members and senior leaders of the saffron camp.
The BJP Bengal unit has set a target of enrolling three crore members under this new membership campaign in the next three months.
Ridiculing the toll figure (of 3 crore members), the TMC said only an "insensitive" party like BJP can launch a membership drive during ongoing pandemic.
The party introduced a toll-free mobile number, as a part of its membership drive.
It also introduced a theme song.
BJP national president J P Nadda, in a video message on the occasion, urged people to join the party and help it defeat the "anti-people" TMC dispensation.
He also accused the government of "mishandling" the COVID-19 situation in the state.
"The TMC dispensation is looting the foodgrains sent by the central government. I would urge all of you to join the BJP and make 'Amar Poribar, BJP Poribar' campaign a success," Nadda said.
The misrule and corruption of the TMC government must end for the overall development of the state.
It is only BJP which can fight against this misrule and usher in a new era of development, he said.
"Hundreds of BJP workers have been framed in false cases, and several have been killed," Nadda said.
Criticising the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress for calling the BJP a "party of outsiders", Ghosh said, the TMC had been resorting to such tactics to divert attention of the people from its "sins".
"The TMC has called the BJP a party of outsiders. Is Syama Prasad Mukherjee an outsider? Is Sir Asutosh Mookherjee an outsider? Such baseless allegations are made by the TMC to divert attention from its sins."
"They have failed the people of the state. And these tactics won't save the party's ship from sinking," he said.
The Lok Sabha MP also claimed that several members from other parties have joined the saffron camp in the recent past to put up a fight against the "undemocratic TMC".
"Last year, during nationwide membership campaign, we had clocked a membership of around 98 lakhs out of which around 78 lakhs membership has been already verified," he later told reporters.
Reacting to BJP's membership drive, the TMC leadership mocked it as a "futile exercise" and said the results would be "figures given out by the BJP's fake news team".
"Last time they had claimed they have 42 lakh members. Later it was found most of them were fake members. This time they are saying three crore members will enrol I am sure you all will again find out that it is just a handiwork for BJPs fake news team," TMC secretary-general Partha Chatterjee said.
"Only an insensitive party like BJP can launch a membership drive during an ongoing pandemic. The people of Bengal will give them a befitting reply," he said.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has, over the years, made deep inroads in Bengal and successfully positioned itself as the main challenger of the ruling Trinamool Congress, pushing Congress and Left Front to distant third and fourth positions respectively.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the party bagged 18 out of 42 Lok Sabha seats in the state, four short of the TMC.
The TMC's tally came down from 34 in 2014 to 22 seats in 2019.
Bengal is scheduled to go to polls in April-May next year.