Delhi poll drubbing: Was BJP's membership campaign in national capital a farce?

New Delhi, Feb 11: The BJP suffered massive humiliation on Tuesday as it won just three seats in Delhi Assembly elections. From bringing outsiders like Kiran Bedi to holding massive membership drive, the saffron party left no stones unturned to come to power in Delhi.

Sadly, party's every strategy to woo voters failed to counter a resurgent

. One such strategy which questions BJP's planning in Delhi polls is its mega membership drive.

BJP carried out a massive membership drive during assembly poll campaigning in Delhi but that too seems to have not worked in party's favour. With the help of its new drive in which a person is required to send a 'missed call' on party's toll free number to become a part of the saffron brigade the party claimed to have added about 28 lakh new members in the national capital.

In September last year, the BJP kicked off a new type of membership drive. In this campaign a person is needed to send a missed call to a telephone number. This was different from the party's traditional style of membership drive. Earlier, the party used to do paid membership drive in which a member was even given a receipt.

Surprisingly, inducting 28 lakh too didn't turn into BJP's favour for the party received total 29.46 lakh votes in Delhi. Thus, if one considers that the all these 28 lakh members voted for the BJP then the party got mere 1.46 lakh votes from common man. This shows that something terribly went wrong with the party as it failed to get voters' support in Delhi and hints that the party's new membership drive wasn't fool proof.

Thus the voters have exposed the party's entire membership campaign. BJP's vote share dropped only by one percentage point from 33.07 per cent in 2013 to 32.2 per cent this time, the party's seat count went down from 31 to a paltry 3.

Delhi BJP's spokesperson Shankar Kapoor has even admitted lapses in the campaign. Kapoor claimed that the party, during its introspection, will discuss about the flaws in membership drive.

OneIndia News