BJP makes 7 lakh new members in two weeks
By Arun Pratap Singh
Dehradun, 23 Sep: BJP is currently undertaking a special drive to recruit new members in the party. Today is the day 21 of this campaign which was started on 3 September in Uttarakhand. While the party has claimed to have made 7 lakh new members in the first two weeks of the campaign, many senior leaders of the party including several MLAs are stated to be lagging far behind the target to them. BJP state President and Rajya Sabha MP Mahendra Bhatt has claimed that the party has managed to recruit over 7 lakh new members during the ongoing campaign. It may be recalled that each party MLA was given a target of recruiting 10,000 new members in the party but many of them are still far behind the target given to them. Not only this, some other senior party office bearers are also stated to be lagging behind the target.
All the party seniors and the MLAs were given the target of ensuring recruitment of 10,000 new members each. Interestingly, some MLAs who have hit headlines for the wrong reasons in recent weeks are the ones, who failed to achieve the target. For example, Ranikhet MLA Pramod Nainwal who has been in the news mostly for the wrong reasons has managed to recruit only 1,711 new members against the target of 10,000. It may be recalled that Nainwal was recently in news when his younger brother Satish Nainwal was arrested for illegally possessing a large number of live cartridges at the Indo-Nepal border in Banbasa. He was arrested for violation of the provisions of Arms Act.
BJP MLA from Salt and brother of former MLA late Surendra Jeena, Mahesh Jeena is reported to have recruited only 1,977 members till now. It may be recalled that Mahesh Jeena was some months ago booked for mishandling and abusing Dehradun’s Municipal Commissioner Gaurav Kumar and has courted other controversies as well unlike his brother late Surendra Singh Jeena who remained a highly popular MLA while he was alive. Yamkeshwar MLA Renu Bisht is also far away from her target, managing to recruit only 2,236 workers as of now. MLA Shakti Lal Shah from Ghansali has been able to add only 2,311 workers till now. MLA Dilip Rawat also called as Mahant Dilip Rawat from Lansdowne has also been able to add only 2,390 workers till now. Interestingly Dilip Rawat is considered to be among the more popular BJP MLAs never having lost any election since he won the first time in 2012. Similarly, Yamunotri MLA Sanjay Dobhal has managed to enrol only 2,980 new members.
Yamunatri assembly constituency MLA Sanjay Dobhal has also been able to enrol only 2,980 members enrolled so far. The party has managed to enrol 3,500 members in Jhabreda where the current MLA is from Congress and 3,820 members in Chakrata, where Congress’s senior leader Pritam Singh has held the fort since 2002 when the elections were first held in Uttarakhand State. Mahesh Negi, who had contested the assembly election from Dwarahat but had lost to Madan Singh Bist of Congress also could add 2,100 new members to the party. Most other MLAs have done managed to perform better, enrolling over 4,000 new members each on average.
Among the MLAs who have performed well included Savita Kapoor of Dehradun Cantt, enrolling more than 27,000 new members and is understood to be at the top of the enrolment drive as of now. Former Cabinet Minister and former BJP State President Madan Kaushik from Haridwar is at second place, having recruiting more than 19,000 members to BJP. Sahaspur BJP MLA Sahdev Pundir also has added more than 18,600 workers to the party so far. Ranipur MLA Adesh Chauhan has succeeded in adding more than 15,000 workers. While State President and also Rajya Sabha MP, Mahendra Bhatt has managed to enrol more than 9,000 new members in his former constituency Badrinath which can be called as praiseworthy effort particularly in the light of the fact that BJP had only recently lost the Assembly byelection from Badrinath. Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami has so far managed to enrol 6,280 new members in Champawat but this number needs to be seen in light of the fact that Dhami has various other commitments and responsibilities and can’t be expected to spend much time in Champawat. Probably, he has a team of close confidants who are engaged in this responsibility on his behalf.
Sources claimed that recruitment drive has been very slow in around 10 assembly segments and questions are raised whether the BJP’s popularity in the state has already peaked , particularly in some of the constituencies also owing to some local factors.
Speaking to Garhwal Post, BJP’s State Media In charge Manveer Chauhan claimed that coming days, the average enrolment for each MLA will cross 7,000. He added that some party MLAs had a slow start because of their other commitments and admitted that some Cabinet Ministers also had a slow start due to other commitments and other responsibilities. To add members and where their number is less, now the state president Mahendra Bhatt is going to hold meetings at the tehsil level of every assembly constituency. For this, Bhatt is now planning to tour the entire state soon.
