By Newsgram Staff Writer

The ruling Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) has become the largest political party in the world with its enrolment drive in the past five months taking its membership to 8.80 crore. BJP has bagged the first rank from the Communist Party of China, which was until now considered the largest party with about 8.60 crore members.

The party hit the 8.80 crore mark on Sunday and the BJP expects its membership to cross 10 crore by the end of this month, exactly what it had aimed for when it launched the drive in November last year. Party President, Amit Shah will announce the final figure at the national executive to be held in Bangalore on April 3-4.

The ambitious membership drive was actually Shah's idea. He views a base of active members as a device for consolidating BJP's freshly-achieved pre-eminence.