Tomar affect: Amit Shah insists on greater scrutiny for new members

 The incident caused a major embarrassment to the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), which swept the Delhi Assembly elections.

According to sources, BJP national president Amit Shah has directed all state chiefs to verify the educational qualification of all new members. Shah categorically asked senior party members not to consider the names of new active workers (not general ones), whose credentials are questionable. 

“Our party president has asked us that there should be no ‘impurity’ in terms of active members. All active members should have good leadership quality and a clean record. No member with a dubious record will be allowed in the BJP’s core group,” said a party insider.

Sources said BJP members Saroj Pandey, Bhupendra Yadav, Kailash Vijayvargiya and Santosh Yadav have been asked to expedite the process of removing the names of those having “questionable” antecedent and mark them “ineligible” for the post of active member.

Tomar was recently arrested by the Delhi Police, following an FIR registered on a complaint lodged by the Bar Council of Delhi for allegedly forging his educational degrees to enroll as an advocate. An FIR was registered against him on June 8 at the Hauz Khas police station and he was booked for cheating, using forged documents as genuine, forgery with intent to cheat and criminal conspiracy.

Sensing that such an incident could cause a major embarrassment to the party, the BJP has decided to become stricter, before finalising the names of its active members.

At present, the party has <g data-gr-id="25">vacancy</g> for several <g data-gr-id="24">officer-bearers</g> and Shah wants to fill those at the earliest. 

The party’s membership drive launched on November 1, 2014, by Prime Minister Narendra Modi ended on April 30 this year, making the BJP the largest political party in the world.