The Tribune Exclusive: After Punjab blues, BJP membership campaign sees 115% jump in Haryana

After failing to meet the targets in Punjab, the BJP has registered bumper gains in the primary membership drive in the neighouring Haryana.

Inroads into Muslim-dominated areas too

• The BJP has recruited more primary members than the votes it had polled in the Muslim-dominated Nuh seat
• In the 2024 Assembly poll, the BJP had clocked 15,902 votes in Nuh but it has made 25,468 primary members there
• The party has made similar gains in the Muslim-dominated Punhana seat of Nuh district

The data accessed by The Tribune reveals the party has recruited 43, 45, 314 primary members in Haryana, which shows an increase of 115% from the 2019 membership of 20 lakh in the state. The 2024 primary membership target for the BJP in Haryana was 50 lakh and the party closed the drive with 86% achievement rate as against 22% in Punjab, which had to be dropped from the party’s internal election schedule due to non-realisation of membership targets.

In Haryana, BJP general secretary Arun Singh has been appointed election officer to oversee the elections of state chief and national council delegates which are to be held this month itself. State BJP presidents and national council members from across India will later elect the new national BJP president.

In Haryana, a surge in saffron support base in Haryana from 20 lakh in 2019 to over 43 lakh is being viewed as an extension of its historic hat-trick in the 2024 Assembly elections. The BJP had polled 55, 48, 800 votes (39.94% of all votes polled) in the state elections. In Haryana, the party had set a rough target of recruiting as many primary members as the number of votes polled in the last year’s state elections. It managed to reach over 43 lakh people. Anyone can become a primary member of the BJP by filling an online or offline membership form which does not come with any fees.

An analysis of the BJP primary membership statistics in Haryana indicates massive gains in Hisar, Rohtak and Gurugram Assembly segments. Ten Assembly seats where the BJP made maximum gains in membership numbers as compared to the targets it had set are Hisar, Rohtak, Gurugram, Karnal, Uklana, Sopepat, Yamunagar, Kaithal, Faridabad and Panipat City. Among these 10 seats, the highest membership (1, 84, 113) has been registered in Gurugram Assembly constituency followed by Karnal (92,871) and Yamunagagar (85,030).

The maximum gains have been made in Hisar, where independent candidate Savitri Jindal had won last year with the BJP polling only 17,385 votes. The party has managed to recruit 81,078 primary members in Hisar, a jump of over 300% from the votes polled here last year.

Likewise in Rohtak, former CM Bhupinder Singh Hooda’s bastion which the Congress won in 2024, the BJP has recruited 83,080 members as against 58,078 votes it had polled in assembly elections. In Uklana, too, which the Congress won in Haryana Assembly elections, saffron membership has closed at 74,527 as against 50,356 votes its nominee had polled.

The lowest saffron membership has been recorded in the following 10 Assembly seats — Hathin (Palwal district), Ferozepur Jhirka (Nuh), Bawal (Rewari), Narnaund (Hisar district), Kosli (Rewari), Meham (Rohtak), Kalanwali (Sirsa), Baroda (Jind), Hodal (Palwal) and Nuh.

However, the BJP has recruited more primary members than the votes it had polled in the Muslim-dominated Nuh seat. In the 2024 Assembly poll, the BJP had clocked 15,902 votes in Nuh but it has made 25,468 primary members here. The party has made similar gains in the Muslim-dominated Punhana seat of Nuh district.

A senior BJP leader privately said, “The membership drive reveals people are keen to associate with the BJP irrespective of caste, class and regional faultlines. Our drive has also done well in farmer-dominated segments of the state.”

The BJP conducts a fresh membership drive every five years. The just-closed membership campaign had been launched on September 2 last year.