22 lakh joined party, claims T.N. BJP

Party says numbers achieved through registration process of missed calls

BJP president Amit Shah launches the ‘missed call’ membership drive in Chennai.— FILE PHOTO:

The Tamil Nadu BJP currently resembles marketing wings of corporate houses. Almost all leaders are out on the field chasing targets for its membership drive with its national president Amit Shah set to visit Coimbatore on March 5.

Claims in the party put the membership figure at just over 22 lakh this week, an exponential increase from about 7 lakh members it had in May 2014. This number has been achieved through its innovative registration process of ‘missed calls’.

All district units have gone full throttle campaigning for the drive. In Chennai, there are reports that workers are making door-to-door visits, sometimes twice a day to verify if the person concerned had given the missed call. Not surprisingly, Central Chennai has received the most calls portraying the urban appeal of the BJP.

But not all are convinced with the effectiveness of this method, given what happened in the Srirangam by-election. In the constituency, leaders claim close to 15,000 persons registered through missed calls. While parties expected their members to vote them, the BJP curiously secured just over 5000 votes in the by-poll. Where the rest went is now a big question mark.

BJP leaders, on condition of anonymity, say that the pressure from the Central leadership for showing numbers is tremendous. The registration itself is centralised, with the calls routed to New Delhi. The total calls made from a particular State are then communicated to the local unit on almost daily basis.

The most significant question though is whether those who register by the ‘missed call’ method would transform into committed cadre. State vice president M. Chakravarthy defends the drive stating that extraneous reasons, including money and muscle power, influenced voting in Srirangam.

“Though we cannot expect all those who register to work effectively for the party, a large percentage would transform into committed cadre. This drive will ensure that we have a significant presence in every polling booth in the State, something we lacked in the past,” he asserted. All said and done, the real test for the membership numbers will be the 2016 Assembly elections.