In what could amount to as a strange coincidence, the Uttar Pradesh unit of the Bhratiya Janata Party counted among its members from the city persons named Sonia, Mayawati, Manmohan and Rahul.
Individuals sharing their name with the prominent leaders across the political spectrum figured in the list of BJP members from Ghaziuddin Haider canal locality of the state capital.
Even Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Hema Malini and Varun too found their place in the prepared list as members from Lucknow after the recently concluded membership campaign.
Party sources said the incident came to notice during scrutiny of membership forms and an internal inquiry found that they were bogus members.
It was detected that a number of people sharing their names with prominent political leaders figured in the list as party members from a particular locality, they said.
They said that when forms were minutely screened it was found that important details like address and contact number were not mentioned in the forms of such people.
Though people share names, it was very unlikely that there could be so many namesakes from a single locality, they said.
Taking a serious note, an internal inquiry was carried out during which it was found that these forms were filled in bogus names.
"The party issues booklets containing 25 forms each, which are used to make new members," BJP state membership campaign in-charge Mahendra Nath Singh said.
He said that during inquiry it was found that a small time worker, who had managed to get a booklet, made those fake memberships.
"We have cancelled all members enrolled by that worker," he said. PTI
