Lucknow, Jul 6 (IANS): BJP working President J.P. Nadda has set a target of 36 lakh new members for the party's membership drive in Uttar Pradesh.

He said that efforts should be made to increase the target to 50 lakh.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will formally launch the membership drive on Saturday from Varanasi.

Nadda, who arrived in Lucknow on Friday evening on his first visit after being appointed working President, held a late night marathon meeting with BJP National Secretary (organization) Shiv Prasad, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, BJP UP in-charge Sunil Bansal, Union Minister and state BJP chief Mahendra Nath Pandey and Deputy Chief Ministers Keshav Prasad Maurya and Dinesh Sharma.

Former Union Minister Kalraj Misra was a special invitee at the meeting.

The party discussed the success of pre-poll programmes such as 'Mera parivar, BJP parivar' and 'Mera booth, sabse mazboot' as well as restructuring of community-wise cells and sabhas from booth to top level.

"At present BJP has 1.8 crore members in UP and our intention is to register 20 per cent increase in membership which is 36 lakh. I would like to see this go up to 50 lakh," he said.

The membership drive is being billed as a big event by the party ahead of by-polls to 12 state Assembly seats. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is seeing the event to sustain the momentum gathered after Lok Sabha results for 2022 UP polls.

Nadda also made it clear that relatives of legislators who had been elected to the Lok Sabha would not be considered for tickets in the by elections.

He thanked party workers for their hard work, saying it had created an atmosphere in its favour in the recent Lok Sabha elections which was converted into votes.

"Through hard work, workers created an atmosphere which was in the party's favour and converted it into votes leading to a historic victory," he said.