BENGALURU: Making the membership drive in Karnataka the party’s top priority, BJP president, Amit Shah, has firmly instructed state unit leaders to cancel all scheduled public agitations against the state government and give their all to the campaign to enhance its membership over the next three months.

The upshot: Mr. Shah’s diktat has changed the state BJP's plan of action.

While it had planned a series of public agitations against “misdeeds” of the state government particularly Arkavathy and also fixed the meeting schedules of its top leaders from January to March, it has now cancelled these protests and meetings to concentrate instead on a vigorous membership campaign.

Informed at the party’s core committee meeting here on January 3 that the state unit had enrolled 14 lakh members upto January 1, the BJP president was reportedly not satisfied with the progress made and instructed top BJP leaders to cancel all their scheduled plans to focus on the membership drive.

“Our party president has instructed us to cancel all our public meetings for the next three months and to go the doorsteps of voters. He has also instructed us to personally visit booths and hoblis to oversee the membership campaign,” said a senior core committee leader.

At the BJP legislature party meeting earlier, the party had decided to hold a series of agitations against the Siddaramaiah government.

Also, former chief minister B.S.Yeddyurappa was to tour Haveri district, Opposition leader in the Council, K.S. Eshwarappa was assigned Chikkodi district and senior party leader and Union minister H N Ananth Kumar, Hubli-Dharwad.