How I became a BJP member

A leader of the Bajrang Dal from Uttar Pradesh WhatsApped me, “Give a missed call on the following number and send me the code that you get along with the number from which you have made the missed call.” When I asked him whatever for, he said, “BJP membership, that too for free (wink emoji).”

Curious to find out if it works, I did as I was told and lo and behold I became a member of the BJP. At the click of a number. It may seem convenient, but too convenient and full of pitfalls, say political analysts. Most political parties would first ensure that the person wanting to join is committed and willing. Communist parties in India, for instance, can take up to a few years before making someone a permanent member, after ensuring they have served actively in the Auxilliary Group and taken the requisite classes.

In a bid to increase its strength quickly, the BJP launched a toll-free number in 2014 whereby people could become members by just giving a missed call, no questions asked. Soon after, BJP president Amit Shah declared that the party had become the largest in the world, surpassing the Communist Party of China as well.

Technology-enabled memberships in political parties are an invention of the digital era, and many parties use it. For instance, the Congress has launched project Shakti in order to expand its booth-level presence. But they verify the numbers through voter IDs. “Otherwise how do we know that it’s a genuine voter. Anyone can give missed calls from your phone and make you a member and you won’t even know it,” Deepika Pandey Singh, former national general secretary of Indian Youth Congress and former district president, Godda, Jharkhand told Frontline . “Any political organisation can become a missed-call party. What is the point of becoming the biggest party in the world or universe if people don’t believe in your ideology,” she said.

Apart from the missed calls, the BJP also enrols people through phone-based Apps like Join RSS, BJP4Youth and through the Nagpur headquartered IT Cell. Social media and WhatsApp are popular forums for the BJP for recruitment and information dissemination. In the run-up to the Assemby elections in Uttar Pradesh, the party created 15,000 WhatsApp groups and 22,000 before the Karnataka elections, according to a political observer. It helps in targeting voters with customised information on the basis of their profile, he said.

Fake news abounds on WhatsApp and given the fact that it is difficult to sift propaganda from news, the app is a handy tool for political parties. “Post-demonetisation and just before the U.P. polls, WhatsApp messages were circulating, that claimed that money from the accounts of the rich would be transferred to those of the poor to share the spoils of demonetisation. People happily voted for the BJP expecting such a thing to happen. We all know that it didn’t happen but there is little to prove and hold anybody accountable for the circulation of fake news,” said a political observer.

The launch of Jio was a pivotal point for the use of technology for the BJP, according to an old RSS hand who has since disassociated himself from the party. With the aim of reaching the maximum number of people with its services, Jio was used as a platform to target people with promotional messages, he explained.

But the missed call might only be the first step to join the party, he said. There would be several layers where one would have to further share details, such as address, pincode, and get attached to a local area group before being a full-fledged party worker. Which means, I still have a long way to go.