Chinks in drive? Congress leader gets BJP membership

Bhopal: A spokesman of Congress here on Sunday created a flutter when he claimed that he was inducted into the Bharatiya Janata Party without his consent. Pankaj Chaturvedy, who has been the spokesman of Congress in Madhya Pradesh for the last eight years, tweeted: “I have received a message informing me that I was made a BJP member. I am going to lodge a complaint with the cyber cell (of police station) for forgery.” Mr Chaturvedy posted a screenshot of the message on his Twitter account, which congratulated him for joining the BJP family and asked him to submit his profile on the saffron party’s membership drive portal.

Mr Chaturvedy was also given a BJP membership card number (4001131248), indicating that he had been inducted into the party. “I have been admitted to the BJP without my consent. This speaks volumes about the current membership of the saffron party,” Mr Chaturvedy told this newspaper.

BJP spokesman here Rajneesh Agrawal, however, strongly denied the existence of any chinks in the nationwide membership drive launched by his party on July 6.

“One has to give a missed call to particular phone numbers issued by BJP or visit a particular portal of the party to apply for membership of BJP. Then, one is inducted into the party after due verification of one’s profile,” Mr Agrawal said and ruled out the possibility of anyone being inducted into his party without following the procedures. The BJP has added 40 lakh new members following the membership drive by the party in Madhya Pradesh, taking the total number of members of the party in the state to 1.40 crore.

According to Mr Agrawal, the party has added 8.5 new cadres in the country following the nationwide membership drive, taking the total number of members
of the party to 19.5 crore.