The ruling Bharatiya Janta Party’s (BJP) membership drive in Rajasthan has run into rough weather after the party repeatedly changed the target for primary membership and failed to achieve its goals within deadlines.
The BJP party is also counting all missed calls on its toll free number - 18002662020 - as proof of membership even though a large number of people have not provided all their details through SMS.
The party had made a provision for making a person a primary member if the person made a missed call to the toll free number and subsequently sent details through an SMS.
Enrollment through missed calls has already been questioned by people in several parts of the country, who said they were wrongly included as members when they responded to calls made to their mobile phones from certain numbers. The BJP claimed earlier this week it had become the world’s largest political party by enrolling 9 crore members.
The party’s leadership in Rajasthan initially set a target of enrolling 50 lakh members in November last year. The target was revised in December to 1 crore members on the directions from the party’s central leadership. Time was given till the end of March for achieving this goal, party leaders said.
{{/usCountry}}The party’s leadership in Rajasthan initially set a target of enrolling 50 lakh members in November last year. The target was revised in December to 1 crore members on the directions from the party’s central leadership. Time was given till the end of March for achieving this goal, party leaders said.
{{/usCountry}}Later, the target was revised to 85 lakh members. Till the end of March, the party claimed to have enrolled 61 lakh members but this figure included enrollments made through missed calls.
“The workers are finding it tough to make new members. A large number of members have been counted just on the basis of missed calls even though the callers did not fill their details. Majority of the counted members are unverified,” a BJP leader said on condition of anonymity.
In order to boost membership, Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje even announced in a meeting that only active members of the BJP will be considered for political postings.
For becoming an active member, a person has to enroll 100 primary members.
BJP leaders tasked party workers with enrolling 200 members in each of the 47,000 polling booths in the state. With the expiry of the March deadline, the party has extended its deadline till the end of April to achieve its target.
The convener of the membership drive, Rajya Sabha MP Narayan Pancharia, said the deadline was extended to April 30 as the party wants to enroll 24 lakh more members.
He said Chief Minister Raje had set the target of 85 lakh members and there was no confusion about the figure. He also said the members were being verified.