The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is set to add seven crore more members, to its present 11 crore, through the latest membership drive launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah last month.

Addressing a press conference here on Thursday, the ruling party’s Working President JP Nadda said that after the latest membership drive, the BJP will have a total of 18 crore members. The BJP has already laid claim to being the biggest political party in the world.

Sharing details of its membership drive, the BJP leader said that the process of collecting data of the seven crore new members was still on and once it was completed, the party’s total membership strength would be 18 crore.

Nadda added that an overwhelming support for the BJP was visible during its membership drive as the target was to recruit 2.2 crore members. “The party got a fabulous response to its membership drive in TMC-ruled West Bengal and in Jammu and Kashmir,” he added.

This was the second round of membership drive. The first was in 2015.

The membership drive had started on July 6, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi launching it in Varanasi and the BJP president Amit Shah in Telangana on the birth anniversary of the party ideologue Syama Prasad Mookerjee’s.

“Though the membership drive had concluded on August 20, the campaign for inducting active members into the BJP would begin from September,” said Nadda.

He also shared the schedule of the organisational polls at different levels across the country — the booth-level election will start from October 10, followed by district and state-level polls.

“The national-level organisational election of the BJP will be held in December,” said Nadda.

comment COMMENT NOW