Around 3,000 members of the Muslim community joined the Bharatiya Janata Party in Andhra Pradesh on Sunday in the presence of Rajya Sabha MP T.G. Venkatesh. The workers joined the saffron party at a membership drive organised at Parinaya Function Hall in Kurnool, reported news agency ANI.
Venkatesh, who joined the BJP in June this year, said the party was working towards the development of Muslims in the country, and added that he had joined the party because he “would be able to serve the people more”.
The BJP got a shot in the arm at a time when the party is taking all out effort to reach out to the minority community through a slew of programmes.
Around 500 Muslim community members had joined the BJP in Gilbert Hill precinct of Andheri West in Mumbai on June 8.
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In June, Minority Affairs Minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, who is tasked to implement this outreach programmes, told the IANS in an interview that the mantra for the coming five years will be 3Es—Education, Employment or self-employment and Empowerment - of the minorities.
In Andhra Pradesh, the BJP has positioned itself as an alternative to the YSR Congress party, after the Telugu Desam Party's poor performance in the recent Lok Sabha elections.
Claiming that the response to the BJP membership drive in Andhra Pradesh had been very encouraging, party's state secretary told a national daily last month that more than 50 per cent of the YSR Congress legislators had expressed their unhappiness with the way the government was functioning.