Delhi: BJP kickstarts membership drive, singer Sapna Chaudhary joins party

Before the general elections, she was rumoured to have joined the Congress after UP party chief Raj Babbar tweeted a picture of her with Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and welcomed her into the party.

The BJP is likely to rope in Chaudhary for its Assembly poll campaign to target constituencies with a sizeable Jat and Purvanchali population such as the South, North East and West Delhi parliamentary constituencies and villages of Delhi bordering Haryana.

Besides Chaudhary, seven others, including a differently abled youth, a first-time voter, retired Army officers, bureaucrats and a street vendor, joined the BJP on Sunday.

Chouhan, who is the national in-charge of the BJP’s membership drive, asked workers to ensure the party’s victory in the Delhi Assembly polls by enrolling members from every booth and all sections of society.

“According to the ‘Sarv Vyapi, Sarv Sparshi’ slogan of the campaign, you have to work hard to ensure that new members come from each booth and each section of society… Ensure no section remains untouched,” he said.

Against its original target of adding 20% new members to the party, the Delhi BJP has decided to bring in 10 lakh people, said Kuljeet Chahal, campaign in-charge in Delhi.

National general secretary (organisation) Ramlal asked party workers and leaders to make efforts to enrol 50% new members from the over 13,000 booths in Delhi, with a special focus on those where the party strength is low. The BJP’s membership drive in Delhi will conclude on August 11. Members will be enrolled online as well.

Party sources said senior leaders are vying with each other to rope in more people and big faces, after BJP working president J P Nadda had pointed out that the actual contribution of a leader is when he brings more people into the party fold.

Nadda had said, “Many people tell me they have been working for the party for years… but I tell them that I see them alone. You come to party programmes, well-dressed, but you do not bring people along. So you are in the party, but you are not contributing.”

“How many new people have joined the party because of you?. If you do this (bring new people), then your strength will increase and so will that of the party,” he had said.

Since then a former Congress MLA, a BSP MLA and Chaudhary have been brought into the party by the state unit.