BJP looking to poach DMK cadres

Chennai: Though the 2016 Assembly election is still a year away, Kamalalayam – the BJP state headquarters here - seems to be in perpetual poll mood. There is a flurry of activity with members from the rival DMK and other organisations joining the saffron party. And under the guise of enrolling new members, the BJP has been systematically targeting the “rationalist” DMK, making inroads into its party, persuading its leaders and cadres to join the saffron brigade.

Though the BJP has not managed to make a dent in the strong cadre-based ruling AIADMK, its attempt to poach members from the DMK started with former Union minister D. Napoleon who joined the BJP in national president Amit Shah’s presence last month. On Sunday, L. Rajendran, former DMK youth wing organiser from Chepauk, and his followers joined the party in the presence of state president Dr Tamilisai Soundararajan and organising general secretary S. Mohanarajulu.

This appears to be an undeclared war, if the words of a senior leader are to be believed. “We have instructed our leaders to organise more such ‘joining’ functions in their respective mandals,” a senior leader said. “Soon, we hope to see more leaders and even a few DMK legislators joining our party,” he said declining to name them. But the intriguing questions are: how could those labelled as rationalists join the BJP and what is really drawing them to the BJP?

“It’s the dynamic leadership and good governance of our Prime Minister Narendra Modi,” claims Mr Mohanarajulu, who is among the state leaders closely monitoring the membership campaign. “Development is attracting many people to our party. BJP’s ideology will not be affected by the exodus from the Dravidian major. In fact, DMK’s ideology has been diluted. The cadres of the DMK are feeling helpless as they are caught in the clutches of their leaders who are trapped in the vortex of 2G scam and bickering,” he said.

“They are keen on strengthening the hands of Mr Modi at the Centre and want the lotus to bloom in Tamil Nadu for the sake of more development and transparent governance,” claims Dr Tamilisai Soundararajan. The party has been organising training camps on enrolling new members and also mandating them to fetch new members into the party, hoping to drive Dravidianism and rationalism to the backseat. In the words of Dr Tamilisai, the BJP will soon replace Dravidianism with “nationalism”. Though not an easy task, the party is aggressively going about it.

Five lakh members have joined BJP ranks

About 5 lakh persons have joined the BJP in the “missed call” campaign initiated to enlist new members. The party has segregated the newcomers into two circles followed by the telecom – Chennai and Tamil Nadu. Of them, 4 lakh members have joined from the rest of TN (barring Chennai, Kancheepuram and Tiruvallur).

The party has appointed a karyakartha each for all the 60,000 booths in the state and each of the booth in-charge has been instructed to identify 100 new members.  About 200 persons have been specially trained to liaison between booth in-charge and state leaders. A large number of youth apart, professionals, those from the business community and auto drivers comprise those who have joined the party.