Pasmanda outreach having failed to deliver, BJP to set off on drive to induct 50 lakh minority members

The membership drive, starting September 1, will pave the way for organisational polls that will culminate with the election of the next BJP president.

The BJP also reached out to Christians, especially in Kerala, ahead of the recent Lok Sabha elections, a move that seemed to have paid dividends as the party registered its first-ever Lok Sabha victory in the state through Suresh Gopi in Thrissur.

Kicking off its national membership drive from September 1, the BJP has tasked its Minority Morcha to induct 50 lakh members from minority communities. With that objective in mind, the Minority Morcha will hold a workshop at the party’s headquarters on August 27, which will have the Morcha’s prabhari Dushyant Kumar Gautam and state representatives in attendance.

“We plan to enrol 50 lakh members from the minority community for which a workshop would be held. Gautam will attend the event,” Minority Morcha chief Jamal Siddiqui told The Indian Express.

The move is being perceived as the BJP’s last-ditch attempt at reaching out to minorities, who are not seen to be the party’s voter base, and comes after its unsuccessful attempts to garner the support of the Pasmanda Muslim community, seen to be a “lower caste” among Muslims. Last year, the party also extended an olive branch to the Sufi community with a Sufi Samvad Maha Abhiyan.

The membership drive will pave the way for organisational polls in the BJP, where mandal, district, regional and state-level elections will be held and presidents at each level will constitute their team of office-bearers. According to the BJP’s Constitution, the election for the national president will be held once chiefs of half the state units are chosen. BJP president J P Nadda’s tenure expired in June and the party is looking for his successor as he has been given a Union Cabinet berth. However, there is a buzz doing the rounds that the BJP Parliamentary Board will appoint a national president before the election who will subsequently assume charge as the full-time party president.

The Minority Morcha’s national executive member Jojo Jose has been appointed the national in-charge of the membership drive while leaders such as Nisar Hussain Shah, Maulana Habib Haider, Faheem Saifi, Mohammad Saddam, and Zafreen Mahjabeen will be the co-incharges.

During the workshop, party workers will be trained on enrolling and verifying the inductees through multiple methods: missed calls, QR code, NaMo website and party website.

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The BJP has a target of enrolling more than 10 crore people during the membership drive and hopes the numbers to swell with poll-bound states Haryana, Maharashtra, and Jharkhand, and the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir organising the drive after the Assembly elections.

Vikas Pathak

Vikas Pathak is deputy associate editor with The Indian Express and writes on national politics. He has over 17 years of experience, and has worked earlier with The Hindustan Times and The Hindu, among other publications. He has covered the national BJP, some key central ministries and Parliament for years, and has covered the 2009 and 2019 Lok Sabha polls and many state assembly polls. He has interviewed many Union ministers and Chief Ministers. Vikas has taught as a full-time faculty member at Asian College of Journalism, Chennai; Symbiosis International University, Pune; Jio Institute, Navi Mumbai; and as a guest professor at Indian Institute of Mass Communication, New Delhi. Vikas has authored a book, Contesting Nationalisms: Hinduism, Secularism and Untouchability in Colonial Punjab (Primus, 2018), which has been widely reviewed by top academic journals and leading newspapers. He did his PhD, M Phil and MA from JNU, New Delhi, was Student of the Year (2005-06) at ACJ and gold medalist from University Rajasthan College in Jaipur in graduation. He has been invited to top academic institutions like JNU, St Stephen’s College, Delhi, and IIT Delhi as a guest speaker/panellist. ... Read More