Attempting to stay ahead of the pack, the BJP came up trumps in its ongoing youth membership drive in the city.
Ahead of the lok Sabha elections 2014, “NaMo’s” magic seems to be working for the party. The city BJP has managed to enroll a large number of youth to its fold during the youth membership drive. The party has claimed of getting an overwhelming response during the membership drive. Though the party had fixed the target to enroll 5000 youth into the party fold, the Bhartiya Janta Yuva Morcha (BJYM) wing of Chandigarh has managed to enroll around 8000 youth in the party so far.
The drive that was initiated in the last week of July would culminate this week. It aimed at enrolling youth in the age group of 18-35 years across the city. During its youth membership drive, the city BJYM gave its best shot to make inroads into city’s rural areas, the bastion of ruling Congress. To reach out to large number of youth there, the BJYM workers visited the villages and colonies of the city and organized campaigns during the drive.
The BJYM wing also visited a large number of colleges to woo the city youth to join the party fold. The campaigns were held in Colleges including Government College Sector 11, Government College for Girls Sector 11, Guru Gobind Singh College Sector 26, DAV among others. The party also reached out to youth through SMS campaigns, its website and other social networking outlets including Facebook, Twitter and Youtube.
The social networking websites acted as a valuable tool for the party to garner the support of youth during party’s membership drive. Details of all programmes during the membership drive were displayed on the social networking websites.
Talking to The Pioneer, Sanjay Tandon, city party chief said that the party’s youth membership drive has got a good response from the youngsters. The city BJYM has managed to enroll a large number of youth into party fold.
Giving details, Amit Rana, Chandigarh BJYM president said that the party has enrolled around 8000 youngsters during its youth membership drive. The drive had started in July and would end this week. He said, “We have got an overwhelming response from the city youth during the drive. Earlier, the party had set a target to enroll 5000 youth in the city party unit.”
After the enrolment of nearly 8000 into party fold, the BJYM has also started the campaigns to assist them in making voter ID cards. Notably, the party had recently constituted a committee to woo the first time voters in Chandigarh and to assist them understand the electoral process.
The committee has been entrusted with the task to contact the first time voters of the city and held meetings with them to garner their support and spread party’s ideology. With an eye on the lok Sabha elections 2014, Chandigarh BJP had also constituted manifesto committee, publicity and propaganda committee, specific contact committee, public participation and opinion assessment committee, program and transport committee among others.
The total number of voters in Chandigarh is pegged at 5.5 lakh. More than 45 percent of the voters in Chandigarh are between 18 to 35 years of age.