BJP eyeing 6 crore new members

Nagpur: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which claims to be the world’s biggest political outfit, wants to expand further. Buoyed by the fantastic win in the Lok Sabha elections, the party has set a target of enrolling six crore new members, taking its tally to 17 crore by August 11 when the national membership drive ends. For the purpose, it has launched the “Sadasyata Abhiyan Parv” or festival of membership drive, national coordinator Shivraj Singh Chouhan said Thursday. Mr Chouhan was in the city to oversee the process. “My party president Amit Shah believes the best of the BJP is yet to come. We have on radar several states like Telangana, AP, Bengal and Jammu & Kashmir where we stand a good chance of having BJP governments. To achieve this, the party wants to enlarge its member-base,” he said at a press meet. He did not lose the opportunity to portray the Congress-led Opposition in poor light. “The Congress ship is sinking and its captain (read Rahul Gandhi) jumped first without waiting to rescue others on board,” said Mr Chouhan. About Mr Gandhi’s resignation and the unending crisis in the oldest political party, he said that the other opposition parties, too, were in disarray. “In UP, bua and babua  (Mayawati and Akhilesh Yadav) could not manage to stay together. Mamata Didi is desperate, seeking help from even old foes like the Communists to cling to power,” Mr Chouhan said. The former Madhya Pradesh chief minister said that the BJP was the only hope for the country’s politics as Prime Minister Narendra Modi was immensely popular and Mr Shah’s strategy had worked as dedicated workers implemented his ideas.