Bhopal, Aug 29 (IANS): No major elections are due in Madhya Pradesh for the next three-and-a-half-years at least, yet both ruling BJP and Opposition Congress are charging up their cadres, especially youth wings and those working at the booth level, for different reasons.

The state BJP leadership is getting its cadre ready for the party’s countrywide membership drive from September 1 and also to achieve its target of making over 1.5 crore members in Madhya Pradesh, the state it has been ruling for the last two decades.

As the BJP leadership is confident of retaining the tag of the largest political party in the world, the party’s state leadership has set its sights on increasing the number of members in their respective domains.

The BJP’s track record in Madhya Pradesh – which is called the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh’s (RSS) laboratory – is impressive.

After retaining power in the state Assembly it made a clean sweep in the recent Lok Sabha polls.

Buoyed by this, the state leadership has decided to increase its primary members to 1.5 crore from the 95 lakh at present.

The BJP has prepared elaborate plans, including multi-layer workshops, to charge up the party cadres from top to bottom.

Top leaders, including Chief Minister Mohan Yadav, state unit head VD Sharma, senior ministers as well as the heads of different wings of the party are addressing workshops in each corner of the state and charging up ground workers.

Senior BJP leaders can be heard narrating the stories of the party’s founder members and also the contribution of top leaders like Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah, to charge up the booth workers for the forthcoming membership drive.

On the other hand, the MP Congress leadership, which is struggling to revive the party in the state after back-to-back defeats in the Assembly and Lok Sabha polls, has been trying to charge up its cadres.

They have been boosting the morale of the young workers by launching protests against the state government’s weaknesses and on national issues too.

While the Congress is in the process of reshuffling its organisational set up gradually in Madhya Pradesh, it is also hitting the streets relentlessly to corner the BJP government.

Right now, the Congress is preparing for a massive protest in the state from next week.