Lucknow: Despite the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) top leadership issuing strict instructions, many elected representatives have shown little interest in the party’s ongoing membership drive. During the first phase of the campaign, which ran from September 2 to September 25, several MPs and MLAs failed to meet their targets, with some enrolling fewer than 500 new members.
Without naming anyone, BJP State President Bhupendra Chaudhary warned these representatives, urging them to meet their targets by the second phase deadline of October 15. The party had set a target of enrolling 10,000 new members for each MP and MLA. While the first phase ended on September 25, the second phase of the membership drive began on Tuesday.
On Monday, a review meeting was held at Lucknow’s Visvesvaraya Auditorium to assess the progress. It was revealed that MPs and MLAs performed the worst during the first phase of the drive.
State General Secretary (Organization) Dharampal Singh presented the campaign’s progress report. According to the report, 15 MLAs have enrolled fewer than 500 members, while 35 MLAs failed to surpass the 5,000-member mark. Similarly, two MPs have enrolled fewer than 500 members, and five MPs enrolled fewer than 1,000.
Despite these shortcomings, the party has so far enrolled 1.70 crore members out of its target of 2 crore.
The meeting also highlighted that 35 districts have enrolled more than 1.5 lakh members, while 10 districts have added over 1 lakh members. However, some assembly constituencies have yet to enroll even 10,000 members.
Dharampal Singh noted that the target is to enroll 200 members per booth, but many booths have yet to enroll even 100 members. The names of underperforming MPs and MLAs were kept confidential in the report.
Bhupendra Chaudhary expressed concern over the membership numbers in Kanpur, despite the region’s smaller size, and admonished Anoop Gupta, the Kanpur region in-charge and State General Secretary.
In vew of poor response, the party has also reduced the requirement for becoming an active member from enrolling 100 regular members to 50 members. BJP state president urged party workers to focus on enrolling more members from backward, Dalit, and women communities.
District BJP presidents from the top-performing areas gave presentations during the meeting. Hardoi BJP President Ajit Singh and Agra BJP President Bhanu reported that they have been reviewing the campaign's progress daily.
MLAs slip away from meeting on pretext of drinking water
As the poor performance of several MLAs became evident during the meeting, many left the venue under the pretext of answering nature's call and drinking water. Some ministers and MLAs did not attend the meeting at all, despite the organization’s directive for mandatory attendance by all MPs, MLAs, and ministers.
According to the report, the Western region of Uttar Pradesh has enrolled the most members, followed by the Awadh region in second place. The Braj region is in third, Kanpur-Bundelkhand in fourth, Kashi in fifth, and the Gorakhpur region ranks last in sixth place.
Dharampal Singh announced that in the second phase of the drive, camps will be set up to facilitate membership enrollment.
Yogi did better than ministers
In BJP's recent membership drive, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath outpaced 28 of his ministers. In the first phase, Yogi enrolled 53,055 members, while Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya could manage only 1,557. Over the last three and a half months, during a period of political friction around the debate of "organization vs. government," it became clear that the government held more sway when it came to enrolling new members.
State President Bhupendra Singh Chaudhary, in comparison, could only recruit 184 members.
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The BJP's national office, after concluding the first phase of the membership drive (from September 2 to 25), shared a report with the state headquarters that reflected data up until September 19. It revealed that ministers, MPs, Lok Sabha election candidates who lost, and MLAs showed little enthusiasm for recruiting new members.
In fact, 28 ministers were unable to enroll even 1,000 members. Additionally, many MLAs and MPs failed to reach even 20 percent of their membership target during the first phase.