New Delhi: Buoyed by its impressive performance in mayoral polls in Uttar Pradesh, BJP top brass on Tuesday asked its cadre in the state to bring more people to the organisation fold and strengthen the party for the political battle ahead in 2014.
At a felicitation programme organised at BJP headquarters here, party president Nitin Gadkari hailed the performance of the Uttar Pradesh unit.
BJP had won ten of the 12 mayoral seats for which elections were held recently. This has come as a shot in the arm for the party which was down in the dumps after its dismissal performance in the Assembly elections.
“We have won ten of the 12 mayoral seats in UP. Our Lucknow mayor Dinesh Sharma has won for the second time and with a margin of 1.7 Lakh votes which should get him a place in Limca Book of Records,” Gadkari said, adding that the vote percentage of BJP in the UP local bodies polls had gone up while that of the Congress had fallen since the Assembly polls.
The BJP President also noted that party candidate Saroj Pathak had won the seat of Chairperson, Kannauj Municipal Council by more than 8,000 votes. Kannauj is the bastion of the ruling Samajwadi Party.
“Winning these elections was a tough task for us. Samajwadi Party was tacitly supporting some candidates fighting against us and so was the BSP. These two parties only did not contest on their party symbol,” Gadkari said.
Crediting these positive results with providing a “new wave of energy and enthusiasm” in the party, the BJP President appealed to the leaders to work unitedly and increase manifold the membership of the party ahead of the Lok Sabha polls in 2014.
“After these results our expectations from the Uttar Pradesh unit of the party have gone up,” Gadkari said. He asked party leaders to work for expansion of the organisation as well as increasing BJP’s political footprint in the state.
“Our aim should be to increase the party membership by another 20 Lakh. I have personally set a target of making 10,000 new members and have completed 980 by now,” Gadkari said.
BJP intends to reach out to Scheduled Caste, Scheduled Tribe, minorities and the 42 Crore people working in the unorganised sector.
“We also aim to bring opinion makers and intellectuals like doctors, engineers, journalists and others to the party,” Gadkari said.
“We should increase the membership by 50,000 in each Lok Sabha constituency,” he added.
The party senses a good opportunity to improve its performance and hopes to come to power in the next elections as the UPA government is facing challenges on several fronts.
Gadkari alleged that the credibility of the government is low and its performance is dismal.
“In politics and cricket, nobody knows what will happen when. Both are full of uncertainities. Nobody knows when the elections may be held,” Gadkari said, adding that the party should be ready for polls.
“If we perform well in UP in the Parliamentary elections then we can surely form an NDA government at the Centre,” Gadkari said. (PTI)