Ghaziabad (Uttar Pradesh), Jan 14

Around 10 lakh people have joined the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) since it launched a free membership drive four days ago, party leader Gopal Rai said here Tuesday. The new members include former Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri's grandson Adarsh Shastri.

Rai told the media that while 4.5 lakh people joined the AAP after giving missed calls to the party, some 4.5 lakh enrolled through web application.

Another 1 lakh sent SMSes to join the AAP, which now rules Delhi, Rai said.

"Apart from this, membership drive is on in 300 districts of the country," he said. "We don't have those statistics."

Rai expressed confidence that the AAP would be able to enrol one crore members by Jan 26.

He said most of the new members are from Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Delhi and Haryana in north India and Bangalore in Karnataka, south India. Majority of the applicants range from 'jhuggi-jhonpri' dwellers to farmers who are eager to join the party.

"We are quite optimistic of achieving our target," he added.

The enrolment process was hampered due to some technical snag in the first helpline number (07798220033). 

Rai said: "To tackle the technical issues, AAP launched two more new numbers - 08082807715 and 08082807716 - so people desiring to join the party do not face any difficulty."

Membership would be terminated if a member is found to be involved in activities that are against the party ideology.

by:IANS