Agartala, Dec 20 (IANS): Union Home Minister and former BJP national President Amit Shah will lay the foundation stone of the Tripura state head office of the ruling BJP on December 22, a party leader said here on Friday.

A BJP leader said that Shah would lay the foundation stone of the state Pradesh office (state head office) at Natun Nagar on the outskirts of Agartala city.

“The proposed four-storey building has been designed to accommodate all necessary modern facilities including an auditorium and small meeting halls. The buildings of the existing party headquarters in the city have huge space problems,” the party leader said.

He said that BJP started organisational work in 1983 and due to its and other frontal organisations’ constant work, the party successfully wrested power in Tripura in March 2018, defeating the CPI-M-led Left Front, which governed the state for 35 years in two phases (1978-1988 and 1993-2018).

During its recent drive, BJP in Tripura almost doubled its membership, compared to 2019, and registered 11.91 lakh members.

BJP leader Bhagaban Chandra Das, who is Tripura state in-charge for the membership drive, said that out of the total of over 11.91 lakh BJP members, 9.41 lakh people have enrolled their names online while 2.50 lakh have registered on offline mode.

He said that in the previous membership drive in 2019, 6.50 lakh people in Tripura registered their membership.

"Due to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's pro-people schemes, projects and welfare measures, people from all walks of life spontaneously enrolled for it," Das, a former minister, had told the press.

He had said that tribals, people from Scheduled Castes, women, farmers, youths, workers, and service holders in large numbers became the party's members.

Das, currently BJP MLA, said that after the enrollment of members, the election to 3,349 party booths across Tripura has been started.

After completion of booth level organisational election, elections to all 60 'Mandals' would be held and then district-level election and finally state-level election would be held, he said.