With its ongoing nationwide membership drive, Aam Aadmi Party on Tuesday claimed of having over 10 lakh people joining the outfit in the last five days. The party also announced the entry of Adarsh Shastri, grandson of former Prime Minister lal Bahadur Shastri, and former IPS officer Uday Sahay in the party.
AAP had kickstarted the membership drive campaign Main Bhi Aam Aadmi on January 10, with an aim of getting over 1 crore members by January 26.
Addressing mediapersons Gopal Rai, who is the overall in-charge of the drive, claimed that during initial four days from January 10, the party has enrolled 10 lakh members through online forms, SMS and by missed call facility provided by the party. After assessing the overflow of applicants for attaining membership, the party has launched two new mobile numbers in addition to the existing one.
“We expect to achieve the target of 1 crore within a timeframe up to January 26, 2014. Initially the party faced some technical snags due to which the inflow of new members hampered. Now those snags have been removed and new numbers have also been added so that online applications are not delayed due to inflow congestion” said Gopal Rai.
Maximum applications have been received from UP, MP, Delhi, Rajasthan and Haryana in northern India, he added. In the South, the party has received maximum support from Karnataka, particularly Bangalore city, followed by Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Andhra Pradesh.
The party has launched free membership campaign from January 10 to January 26, 2014. “The success in receiving such a tremendous response has brought hope to the people as they feel politics is coming closer to them,” said Rai. Social activist Richa Pandey Mishra, former IRS officer Jeetendra Kumar Shukla, senior SC lawyer Santosh Kumar, Career launcher founder Satya Narayanan R also joined the party on Tuesday.