Cong to incentivise membership drive

NEWDELHI: The Congress plans to incentivise its enrolment process by offering rewards to its best enrollers as part of efforts to counter the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s massive membership drive, according to an internal note of the opposition party.

The note, a copy of which HT has seen, was prepared after Congress president Sonia Gandhi held a meeting of party general secretaries and state in-charges on September 30.

According to it, about 25 best performing enrollers in each district will be rewarded every month.

“In a period of six months, it amounts to recognition and felicitation of 100,000 best performing enrollers who will then be deployed to take up intensive campaign for the party in their respective [polling] booths,” said the note. Many of them will be given important organisational roles as well, according to people aware of the developements.

The Congress launched its fresh membership drive in 2018 before suspending it for some time in view of the April-May Lok Sabha elections.

It suffered a second crushing national election defeat in a row and won just 52 of the 542 Lok Sabha seats.

The BJP returned to power with 303 seats.

The Congress is now reviving its membership drive, which will continue until 2022 when its organisational elections will be held, the people cited above said.

The people added that Congress president will monitor the membership drive on a real-time basis to ensure maximum enrolments.

The BJP in August said it has enrolled about 70 million new members to take its membership base to 180 million, surpassing the Communist Party of China (CPC) as the world’s largest party. The CPC has over 90 million members, according to media reports.

The Congress leaders are yet to tabulate their membership, the people said.