Rahul effect boosts Cong's membership drive

Rahul Gandhi’s brand of politics is not only winning seats for the Congress in the rural heartland of Uttar Pradesh, in urban Delhi too, his appeal has given impetus to the membership drive of the party.

After Gandhi took special interest in recruiting fresh faces and increasing the party’s member base, the Delhi unit of the Congress has already sold 1.1 million primary membership forms in the national capital.

This means, the cash register of the party is also ringing as the forms are sold at a price of Rs 3 each. Delhi Congress unit president J P Aggarwal told Business Standard, “There is an overwhelming response. We have never seen this kind of response in recent years. People are positively responding to the call of Rahul Gandhi and we see a lot of youth faces eager to join the party.”

Gandhi had been regularly advocating to the youth to join politics ever since he took charge of the party’s youth and student’s wing.

For the first time, the party has also initiated a fee of Rs 100 for aspirants in organisational elections.

R K Sarkar, vice president of the Delhi Congress unit said: “All office bearers of the Delhi unit have also been asked to make 50 members mandatorily. Most of us have already completed the targets as there is tremendous response from the public.”

On Monday, Congress general secretary Oscar Fernandes held a review meeting with the Delhi leadership over the membership drive, which has been initiated over the past six months. Fernandez told the leaders that the deadline for the membership drive was December 31. The Congress leaders assured him the membership drive would be completed well within this stipulated time. The meeting was attended by party MLAs, municipal councillors, district and block committee presidents and other office-bearers.