On Thursday, the Madhya Pradesh Home Minister Dr. Narrotam Mishra took a jibe at the Congress party for poorly failing in the digital membership drive in the state. “Every campaign of the Congress is now confined to Television and Twitter. They have no power to fight at the grass-root level”, Mishra said.
He added that every campaign led by the Indian National Congress will be a big failure. “Look at the Ghar-Ghar Chalo campaign. What happened to it? It is their internal matter but I can say that Congress can do politics only on social media now. They have lost the power to fight at the grass-root level”, he tweeted.
टेलीविजन, ट्विटर तक सीमित रह गई कांग्रेस का हर अभियान जमीनी स्तर पर फिसड्डी ही साबित होता है।
— Dr Narottam Mishra (@drnarottammisra) April 21, 2022
घर-घर चलो अभियान का जो हश्र हुआ, वैसा ही हाल अब डिजिटल सदस्यता अभियान का भी हो रहा है।@INCMP pic.twitter.com/qqpPz7zFlS
In November last year, the Indian National Congress initiated the All India Congress Committee Digital Membership Program intending to expand the party membership. Under the program, interested people could obtain self membership of the party online. According to the reports, the party added 2.6 crore, new digital members, to the party including the existing members who had already become members through the physical membership.
Party chief Sonia Gandhi enrolled herself as part of the initiative, former PM Manmohan Singh became a digital member and former Congress chief Rahul Gandhi also enrolled himself as a digital member on the first day of the drive on November 1. However, reports mention that the drive was a big failure in the states of Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Uttarakhand, Goa, and Manipur. While Telangana performed well among the states by adding 39 lakh members, Delhi managed to pull only 2.5 lakh members against the targeted 10 lakh.
The drive also failed to do good in the states of Gujarat, Kerala, and Madhya Pradesh. In the state of Madhya Pradesh, the party could add only 10 lakh members which is 6 percent of the 1.55 crore voters from the 2017 assembly elections. The drive is of significance in the state as assembly elections for Madhya Pradesh are due next year.
Ahead of the elections, Congress’s Kamal Nath in the state had also declared the kickstart party’s biggest ever campaign named ‘Ghar Ghar Chalo Abhiyan (door to door campaign)’ from February 1, 2022. The campaign aimed to go from door to door and explain to them the policies of the party. He started the campaign from Devas where he was seen waving at the public from his car. Reportedly, he did not pay a visit to any of the citizen’s houses.
BJP state minister Vishwas Sarang then had slammed the Congress party for showing off their fake concern through the campaign. “Kamal Nath led the Ghar Chalo Ghar-Ghar Chalo campaign by sitting in a car in Dewas. We can guess from this that Congress leaders are afraid to go to people’s homes. Congress is just creating the hype through this campaign”, he had said.
The next Madhya Pradesh Legislative Assembly election is scheduled to be held in or before November 2023 to elect all 230 members of the state’s Legislative Assembly. However, the dates of the elections are yet to be declared.
