Dubbed as the mentor of Punjabi Soorma Shaheed Bhagat Singh, young rebel freedom fighter Chandra Shekhar Azad’s fierce patriotism and courage inspired many others of his generation to enter freedom struggle in his short life span of 24 years.
Now, over a century after the birth of the “liberated” (azad) revolutionary leader, the Bharatiya Janata Party’s Yuva Morcha has strategically chosen his birth anniversary - July 23 — to expand its base by wooing the youngsters. launching its ‘Yuva Sadasya — Yuva Mitra Abhiyan’ on July 23, the BJP’s youth wing is all set to strengthen its base ahead an all-important lok Sabha elections, scheduled to be held in 2014.
The Yuva Morcha, aiming to enroll nothing less than five lakh members during its month long drive, would mainly focus on the age group of 18 to 25 years.
For bring more and more youngsters into the party fold, the young saffron brigade would not only go house-to-house, but also try to tap the youngsters on the cyber space using every mode of advanced communication. Be it social media or internet, new mobile applications or SMSs — the BJYM would explore every possible mean associated with generation today.
In addition, the BJYM would also organise conferences, seminars, rallies, torch processions and other things “time-to-time” to associate the youth with the party. For the purpose, the party is planning to appoint district membership incharge and booth membership incharge who may take the membership campaign at the grass root level.
Banking on Gujarat Chief Minister and NDA’s prospective prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi’s dynamic personality good enough to attract the youngsters and his recent call to youth to participate in democratic process, the party believed that he has the charisma with which the country’s youth want to associate themselves.
“The political party’s base or strength depends on the number of its members, besides other things. In order to further strengthen our party, we conduct membership campaign programme from time to time, and have been succeeded in associating 55 lakhs young members with the party during previous special membership campaign across the country, and around four lakhs in Punjab alone,” Punjab BJYM president Mohit Gupta told The Pioneer.
He added, “On the same lines, we are launching a campaign, Yuva Sadasya - Yuva Mitra Abhiyan, in all states, including Punjab on July 23 - the birth anniversary of great revolutionary Chandra Shekhar Azad. The youth associated with the party will be called ‘Yuva Mitra’ (young friends).”
“To begin with, and to create an atmosphere, the first phase for enrollment of members would be starting from July 15 to 22, where the party members would go to the youngsters in colleges, universities and other institutes asking them to join BJYM,” he added.
Being a new BJYM member would not be that easy. Besides providing general information regarding parents’ name, residence, education, occupation, parliamentary and Assembly constituencies, the new members would also be asked to provide their blood group details, social media profile, among other things. What is more, the new members would also be asked whether they would be able to contribute their time to the party for the 2014 parliamentary polls.
“Today’s youth has very well understood that only a party like BJP with its ideology of patriotism can ensure their all-round development along with that of the country. They are disillusioned with the serious crisis and problems the country is facing, including price-rise, unemployment, corruption, scams, terrorism or Naxalism, because of Congress’s misrule,” he said.
So, whom the party will targetIJ “The first time voters, rural youths, backward and scheduled caste and tribes and successful young boys and girls between the age group of 18 to 25 years would be the main priority of the party cadre during this special membership campaign,” said Punjab BJYM chief.