I take both pride and pleasure in informing that BJP has become World’s largest political party: Amit Shah

On Apr 30, 2015

With the enrolment of over ten crore members, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has emerged as the largest political party of the world. While using new and advanced information technology for party recruitment BJP has very resolutely set a new record. In this campaign, the Party used a toll-free number based, cell-phone centric campaign for over six months, at the end of which Party Organisation has made its presence felt in every tehsil of our far-flung nation, right from East Kameng in Arunachal Pradesh to Kutch and Kargil to Kannyakumari. The use of ICT has helped the Party make this recruitment campaign hundred percent democratic, transparent, seeker-friendly and all inclusive; eventually making a significant increase in the social base of Party Organisation and adding to its geographical foot-print.

BJP is the first political party all over the world to have used modern ICT technique for a massive recruitment drive of this magnitude.

In the process that was used for this campaign, any cell-phone owner could obtain party membership via dialing a toll-free number 1800-266-2020, who in turn would instantly obtain a unique membership number through a text message. Later, he would respond to the instructions and send his personal details like full name, address and pin-code etc to a dedicated cell-phone number, completing the technical-formality of enrolment. Now, based on the compiled record created out of this information, Party is engaged in the task of preparing Lists of Members enrolled. Later, from May 1 onwards, Party will be conducting a mass-contact campaign, which will also involve verification of the data gathered. Under the mass-contact campaign; Party workers will be contacting every newly registered member, gather his personal information; give him basic information about the Party as also share some details about the performance of the NDA Govt. at the centre. This mass contact will go on till 31^st July, to be followed by a chain of training programmes. After this, an important phase of induction of the new recruits will be over.

On November 1, last; by re-enrolling Prime Minister Narendra Modi the campaign was launched in a big way and later it picked up, adding thousands of new members practically every day. At every level, this very fundamental phase of party building was handled with due seriousness. A committee headed by Party Vice President Dr. Dinesh Sharma, comprising Dr Vinay Sahasrabuddhe, Vice –President; Arun Singh and Sudha Yadav; both national secretaries; and C T Ravi, office bearer from Karnataka was engaged in the preparation, supervision and review of the campaign during the entire period. As the methodology employed was entirely non-conventional, a series of workshops to orient Party workers was conducted at various levels. Later, in order to ensure smooth conduct of the campaign, Party leaders undertook whirlwind tours across the country. As Party President, I myself extensively toured almost all the States in a span of 53 days. Besides, Dr Dinesh Sharma traveled to Gujarat, Bihar, west Bengal, Assam and the North East India, while Dr Vinay Sahasrabuddhe toured Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Kerala, Goa, West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and Jammu-Kashmir. National Secretary Arun Singh covered Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Bihar, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan; while Ms. Sudha Yadav toured Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Uttarakhand and Delhi. C T Ravi, from Karnataka extensively traveled in Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and Telangana.

In this entire campaign, apart from all national office-bearers of the Party, all MPs, union ministers, Chief Ministers and their cabinet colleagues, all State and District level office-bearers also contributed through their efforts. In several States, recruitment stall were put up at public places; facilitating mass enrollment. Also, programmes like gate-meetings at factories and industries, colleges, small-gatherings at bus and railway stations, slum-colonies, vegetable markets, places of worship, etc were conducted in a massive way. Party workers also reached up to bus and rail passengers, farm-labourers and farmers, women members of self-help groups, hawkers, shoe-shine boys, auto and taxi drivers, vendors, nurses and physicians as well as young professionals at the call centres and in every section of the society, the campaign received a huge response.

In most States, structured efforts were undertaken through initiatives like Collective Membership, Individual Membership and Camp/ Stall Membership etc. Collective Membership involved door-to-door campaign via group visits, Individual Membership involved personal efforts through friends and relatives. Camps and Stalls at Public Places also attracted a huge response. In several States Pravasi karyakartas; who traveled in the given region; were also engaged in order to cover a specific area.

Under the guidelines issues for this campaign, only those Party workers who would enroll at least 100 primary members and provide their verifiable details in a format, are to be considered as qualified to be come Active Members. This has ensured a creation of a concrete and full-proof database.

As per the Party strategy, seven majorly coastal States of Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Odisha, West Bengal and Assam are high on organizational consolidation plan. Hence, greater emphasis was given on the campaign in these States. A total of 6782 Party workers from these States devoted three to six months as a whole-time workers dedicated for recruitment. In all these States, dozens of campaign-meetings were organized for mass-membership, leaders traveled into the interior right up to tehsil places, and all types of media-campaigns; including social-media were conducted to gain momentum. All these focused efforts have resulted in three to ten fold rise in all these States.