

CHENNAI: As the total members enrolled under the Oraniyil Tamil Nadu initiative crossed two crore recently, Deputy Chief Minister Udhayanidhi Stalin has been speaking every day to party functionaries from the 20 lowest-performing Assembly constituencies over phone, encouraging them to catch up with their counterparts from other constituencies.
According to sources, CM MK Stalin, while meeting the DMK’s regional in-charges at the Apollo Hospitals, instructed them to pursue the membership drive seriously by pointing out disparities in numbers in some constituencies. Stalin is said to have instructed Udhayanidhi to monitor the progress on a daily basis.
“The cadre conducting the membership drive should collect one mobile number for every two members joining. However, at some polling booths in certain districts, six or more members were enrolled using a single mobile number. As a result, all such enrolments have been removed from the database, and the functionaries concerned have been instructed to start afresh there,” sources said.
Out of a total of 68,467 polling booths in the state, digital enrolment using the mobile app is being conducted in around 64,000 booths. In the remaining booths, member enrolment is under way manually due to network issues.