Emerging out of a three-day strategy meet and focused on making a "Congress-free India", the ruling BJP has outlined an ambitious programme that would use technology to catalyse its nearly 10 crore (100 million) members into a "mass cadre" to convey the Narendra Modi government’s policies and programmes across the country.The party has notched up around 9.27 crore members, and the number is growing by the day. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is confident of adding more than 10 crore members by the April 30 deadline for the membership drive.Thanks to the surge of members, the BJP has now become the largest political party in the world, surpassing the Communist Party of China. But this is not enough for BJP. Once the membership campaign ends, the BJP will start a mega exercise of reaching out to every member who enrolled through the party’s online or phone programme. "The sampark (contact) programme is the second stage, when our local workers will go and meet every enrolled member and brief them about the party ideology," party spokesperson G.V.L. Narasimha Rao told IANS."This is a way to reach to the booth level worker. The idea, given by the prime minister, is to involve the common people in politics," Rao said.
"The Congress had created a perception that politics is dirty and common people should stay out of it. We are trying to change that perception and involve the common people in nation building along with the government," he added. The BJP leader said the new members will be informed about the ideology and history of the party in detail. This will be followed by workshops to train the "active members" - or those members who enroll at least 100 other members.The trained members will then be assigned different roles, including being involved in the social campaigns as announced by party president Amit Shah. The four programmes are - eradicating manual scavenging, the Beti Bachao-Beti Padhao campaign for the girl child, Swachh Bharat or Clean India campaign and Namami Gange for cleaning river Ganga.
The party also plans to involve these members in assisting in its mission of creating a public perception in favour of the land acquisition bill brought out by the government. "Our party workers will brief these new members that the land bill is not anti-farmer. This message will then be carried forward," another party leader told IANS."This will be the strongest step towards making a Congress free India. When the common man will be not just a voter but a member who shares our ideology, the party will make its roots even more firm," said the leader, who did not want to be named. Though it has been attacked over the style of its membership, leaders say several "checks and balances" have been put in place in the process of enrolment. "There have been several checks and balances that have been in place in the membership campaign; people don't realise that," party spokesperson M.J. Akbar told IANS.
According to the BJP, the verification process for the members is going on. "We have got around 15 crore requests, but little more than nine crore have been made members," a party functionary said. While technology has played a key role in taking the membership number to the record high, the BJP has plans to use technology further to improve communication between local workers and its central offices. "We will build a party office at every district, and there will be facility for video conferencing with the central party office," said a party functionary. Modi, in his campaign before the general election, had used video conferencing massively to address virtual rallies across the country.