TN number one state in electoral corruption: Amit Shah

Coimbatore, March 5: Alleging that Tamil Nadu is the number one state in electoral corruption, BJP President Amit Shah on Thursday asked party workers to be alert and make efforts to check money flow during elections.

"Tamil Nadu is the number one state in the country where money plays a bigger role during elections. To prevent this, BJP should be strengthened at the booth level, so that voters can be alerted and prevented from taking money," he said.

He was addressing the first session of the State and District office bearers of the party, where reporters and members of the public were not allowed.

Shah said it was necessary to strengthen BJP,which alone could prevent corruption, to bring about a change in Tamil Nadu, party sources quoted him as stating in his address.

On BJP's national membership drive, Shah said nearly 6.2 crore new members had been enrolled and hoped the party's target of 10 crore by March 31 would be achieved in another 25 days, the sources said.

As far as Tamil Nadu was concerned, the membership drive had crossed 22 lakh as against the target of 60 lakh, he said.

Shah said he was ready to convene the National Executive so that Tamil Nadu could achieve the target, the sources said.

Claiming that BJP polled over 17 crore votes in the Lok Sabha polls of 2014, he said if the 10 crore new members enrolled three each, including family members, it would reach 30 crore, enabling them to easily get 370 seats in the next elections.

All India BJP secretary P Muralidhar Rao, National secretary H Raja, Minister of State Pon Radhakrishnan, BJP State president Tamilisai Soundararajan, National Executive member C P Radhakrishnan and State secretary G K S Selvakumar were among those present.

PTI