A few days ago, a delegation of BJP leaders led by general secretary Arun Singh, visited China on the invitation of Communist Party of China (CPC). The 11 member BJP team was in Beijing between 26 August and 1 September and interacted with top CPC officials including CPC standing committee member Ye Zhenqin, Guo Yezhou, vice-minister of the CPC’s international department and Song Tao, the head of the international department. The Communist Party of China (CPC) is the founding and ruling political party of the People’s Republic of China.
“When we told them we have exceeded party members than what they have, they were quite shocked. They wanted to know how we have built the party, especially in the past five years. How we use the party machinery for elections.” said a BJP leader who was part of the delegation.
The Bharatiya Janata Party is a four-decade-old political party and became the largest political organization in the world in 2015. The total membership of BJP crossed 8.8 crore mark in 2015, and it took over the Communist Party of China (CPC) to become the party with the largest membership. The party has registered exponential rise since Modi-Shah Duo came at the national stage in 2014.
As of 2019, the party has more than 18 crore members across the length and breadth of India. In less than a span of four years, the membership of the party doubled.
The political parties around the world are curious about the strategy behind the meteoric rise in BJP membership.
The CPC members were curious about the rise of BJP under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and party president Amit Shah. Elections are held in China for local people’s Congresses but all the higher posts including National legislature are indirectly elected. Therefore, CPC neither needs to carry out the practices of BJP nor it could.
But the political parties in other democratic countries which hold elections on regular intervals could learn from BJP. The party got elected in parliament back to back in two elections with majority. In fact, it increased the seat tally in the 2019 general election.
BJP also won state assembly elections and local election across the regions of the country. Currently, the party is in power in 13 states on its own, and in coalition in 6 states. It won elections in the states like Haryana, Assam and Jharkhand where it never has been in power.
In eastern states like Assam, West Bengal, and Odisha where BJP was not even a minor stakeholder a few years ago, it is either ruling or the second-largest party. Therefore, the political organizations around the world want to learn from BJP and replicate their success.
The interaction with members of the CPC will increase the people to people, and party to party interaction from China. There is ‘trust deficit’ in Indo-Chinese relations because the countries deal only on the government level. In the ever-changing world where every government is following ‘realpolitik’ principals, the trust deficit between governments is obvious. But the people-to-people interaction and party level interaction could help the countries to develop a better relationship.