The Bhartiya Janata Party is the world’s largest political organization with a 100 million strong membership as of 2015. All experts unanimously credit the BJP’s magnanimous electoral victories to the alacrity with which the organization works. While the opposition in the country is yet to recover from their collective poll debacle a month ago, the BJP has already hit the ground running for the assembly elections, and more importantly 2024 general elections.
The BJP is all set to launch a massive membership drive across the nation with an aim to increase their party cadre in each state by 20%. This membership drive is set to be launched on the 6th of July, the birth anniversary of Dr. Shyama Prasad Mookerjee. Considering the fact that the party has approximately 100 million members, if the BJP can achieve an increase in membership by 20% nationwide, it would roughly mean that in a month, the party will have successfully added 20 crore members to its fold! This indefatigable organization may very well prove to become impossible to electorally defeat. In any case, the Congress is going through a rough patch. Their funds have dried up, their organization is in tatters, infighting has ensued in almost every state in which they have a government and their party president wants to quit but will not be allowed to do so. The BJP is aiming to capitalize on this very stagnation of the opposition.
However, the scenes are evidently different in Delhi. The BJP is planning to go all guns blazing to return to power in a state in which they have not formed a government in twenty years. The same drive is being implemented in Delhi too, however, the target is many more times that what they aim in other states. In Delhi alone, the party aims to enroll over 14 lakh new members. Add this to the 27 lakh members they already have, the BJP, by August, will have around 41 lakh members in Delhi! “The membership drive will boost our chances in Assembly polls, as more workers will translate into stronger ground level presence and better voter connect,” Delhi BJP Chief Manoj Tiwari said. The BJP won all seven Lok Sabha seats in Delhi. It won in over 12,000 of the total 13,816 polling booths which would translate into a victory in 65 of the total 70 Assembly segments in Delhi.
Delhi goes to elections early next year. Arvind Kejriwal faces anti-incumbency and the BJP is looking to gain massively from the vote split between the AAP and the Congress. Couple that with BJP’s loyal vote bank in Delhi, the party is aiming for a clean sweep. In the general elections this year, it was seen that the BJP’s vote share was more than that of AAP and Congress combined on the seven seats. For the assembly polls, the BJP is giving extreme attention to 1200 booths in which they do not presently have a strong presence or in which they have historically not performed well. Through this membership drive, they aim to consolidate and solidify their presence on these booths.
The BJP is also going the extra mile, in the sense that it is aiming also to enroll teenagers below the age of 18 as primary members in the state. Youth has been a major vote bank of the BJP in recent elections. The primary members work at the booth level and can participate in elections for office bearers of BJP units at that level.
Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal is bound to be having nightmares with this massive 37-day long membership drive of the BJP. It is a well known fact that the BJP is an unforgiving and ruthless political challenger in states where they are determined to form governments. We can only wait to see how this drive will fructify itself in the polls. BJP’s focus on membership in Bengal and southern states like Telangana will also rattle its opponents.
