The Congress on Monday launched a nationwide membership drive, inviting people to join the party to save their individual freedom and safeguard the country’s future, and portraying the Narendra Modi government as a threat to constitutional rule.

While a membership drive is a ritual before every organisational election, the party this time ran a social media campaign to project the internal exercise as a mission to protect India.

The campaign — under the hashtag JoinCongressSaveIndia — has been launched with songs and videos dwelling on the contemporary political challenges. For the first time, the enrolment campaign has woven an antagonistic narrative, suggesting that fighting the regime is a national imperative.

The campaign videos ask: “Do you feel your personal freedom is being snatched from you? Are you fed up with violence in society? Do you feel your fellow citizens are being unnecessarily targeted? Are you afraid to speak the truth about this government? Are you incapable of bearing the burden of the so-called achchhe din? Do you see a bleak future? Time for a fightback. Time to join the Congress.”

Using visuals of attacks on students, Dalits and minorities, the farmers’ struggle and the street lynchings, the party said: “This government wants you to think that questioning them, criticising them or speaking against them is anti-national. It is not. It is your right.”

It exhorted people to join the Congress, saying: “This is a battle to save the country; this is a war against the divisive forces. Let us fight back the way Gandhiji taught us, with non-violence, truth and unity.”

The imageries used ranged from the arrest of environmental activist Disha Ravi to the forcible burning of a rape victim’s body in Hathras, leaving no space for doubt about what the party intends to fight although the publicity material avoided referring to the RSS-BJP directly. “Nafrat waale tanashahon se aao mil kar saath laden (Let us come together to fight the dictators whose politics rests on hate),” the party said.

An AICC veteran who has seen this exercise for the past 40 years told The Telegraph: “I have never seen such campaigns. We told people to join the party of Gandhi and Nehru but not because the nation was in peril because of some or other leader. The situation is different today with Narendra Modi indeed posing new challenges to the country.

“But I must point out that the membership drive was genuine till the Indira-Rajiv days when party workers enjoyed some respect. During the past two or three decades, leaders have started committing fraud and enrolling fake members.”

He added: “We remember going door to door or organising camps in villages and towns to enrol members. Initially, people paid 25 paise and later Re 1 to acquire membership. But when the fraud started, leaders paid huge amounts themselves and reported to the high command that they had enrolled thousands. All of it was fake.

“But these leaders had a say in picking the state delegates and AICC members, which was supposed to be based on the number of members somebody enrolled. But these leaders destroyed the organisation by giving the names of their servants, drivers and bodyguards.”

Another AICC member from Delhi said: “Respect for genuine party workers has diminished. I was surprised to see the absence both of senior and younger leaders from Sakti Sthal on Indira Gandhi’s death anniversary. There was a time when hundreds of leaders came. There are genuine reasons for the party’s decline. Only targeting Modi and the RSS won’t suffice. The organisation has to be built brick by brick.

“Areas where there were hardly a few BJP workers and dozens of Congress workers have changed. Now it is difficult to escape BJP workers and find Congress workers. All because the leaders resorted to forgery and took the sycophancy route instead of working at the grassroots.”

The central leadership was aware of the fraud by state leaders and therefore made photographs and mobile phone numbers mandatory for members. But leaders used photographs from the voters’ list and gave fake phone numbers while boasting of a successful drive.

This time, there is a plan to make the entire exercise digital in at least eight states. Senior office-bearers have been asked to ensure the enrolment of genuine members who are going to be more important in the fight to “save India” than social media campaigns.