Chandigarh: BJP working president J P Nadda on Tuesday asserted that his party is the only one in the country giving primacy to its workers with many of its top leaders, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, emerging from amongst them, in contrary to other parties banking upon "dynasty".
Addressing party workers in Ambala, Nadda said there are hundreds of political parties registered with the Election Commission of India, with some of them recognised as state parties and a few as national ones, but none of them, except the BJP, gives primacy to its workers. "All these outfits are either connected with a dynasty, individual or family. The BJP is the only party with nothing like 'parivarvad.' Here we only have 'karyakartavaad'. For us, the worker is supreme," he said.
To drive home his point, Nadda cited examples of party's several top leaders, including Prime Minister Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah, who, he said, were all ordinary party workers once. Nadda also pointed towards many BJP leaders, including Union Minister Narendra Singh Tomar, state leaders Anil Jain and Subhash Barala and Haryana Minister Anil Vij, present in the function, and said, "None of us come from any political background, we were ordinary workers, we are and we will be so." Nadda was addressing the party function at Ambala, ahead of the state assembly polls, due in October.
The BJP has set a target of winning more than 75 seats in the 90-member Haryana House, in which its present strength is 48. The BJP working president opened his speech, lamenting that the party recently lost its stalwarts like former Union ministers Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley and said their contributions to nation-building and strengthening the party can never be forgotten. On the issue of nullification of the Article 370 which granted special status to Jammu and Kashmir, Nadda said the step was taken as it was in the country's interest and would also benefit the people from the valley, as investments would now flow in and youths would get jobs.
"You saw how we scrapped Article 370 in one day. Our intentions are clear, which is 'the country first'. On Article 370, the opposition says a wrong has been done, we say if it was a good thing why did the Congress retained it as a mere temporary provision, why didn't they make it permanent?," asked Nadda. "It is because they knew it well that it was not in the country's interest, but they had no guts to scrap it. We did it," he said.
Nadda also said Prime Minister Modi categorically rejected any scope for a third party mediation between India and Pakistan on Kashmir, maintaining that the two countries can discuss and resolve all issues bilaterally. Hailing leadership of Prime Minister Modi and Haryana Chief Minister M L Khattar, he asked the gathering in Ambala, "What do we need in polls -- a leader, policy, intent, programme, worker and environment?"
"We have all, the opposition has none," he said. Addressing the gathering, Tomar, who is the BJP's poll in-charge for Haryana, said even the opposition is admitting that state Chief Minister Khattar's regime is an honest one and has given a clean administration. On scrapping of the Article 370 by the Centre, Tomar said even former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee had once said a day will come when the BJP on the basis of its full majority will scrap the Jammu and Kashmir's special status.
"Atal ji had once said a day will come when we will get the majority and scrap the Article 370," he said. "People say parties generally work on such issues when the elections are around. The BJP, however, never considered issues like Article 370, Uniform Civil Code, Ram Temple as political issues or issues to garner votes. There were no elections around, but Modi government scrapped Article 370 within 100 days of its resuming power," he said. Nadda also assured all party workers that they were in the right party, irrespective of how they joined it.
"A worker joins a party in three ways. A worker joins a party by choice after studying ideologies of different parties and deciding for a particular party. Another worker comes by circumstances while yet another comes by accident," he said. "But, I believe all of you who are here are at the right place and should consider yourself lucky," said Nadda. "We should also consider ourselves lucky to have leaders like Prime Minister Modi, and Union Home Minister Amit Shah ji," he said.
Later, Nadda joined Chief Minister Khattar's late evening 'Jan Ashirwad Yatra' in Gurgaon and addressed a public gathering there and hit out at the previous state governments led by INLD and the Congress. Without naming INLD chief O P Chautala, he said, "One former chief minister is behind bars (in teachers recruitment scam)", while the corruption flourished under the previous Congress regime." He said the Khattar government has worked with the spirit of "Sabka Saath Sabka Vikas" and the motto of "Haryana Ek, Haryanvi Ek". He said the state government has given more than 68,000 government jobs purely on merit.
"Under the previous regime, bribes were taken even for transfers. Manohar Lal ji's government ended this practice. In jobs, merit is the sole criteria and favouritism and the money are no longer any consideration," Nadda said. Nadda also spelt out several developmental initiatives of the Modi and Khattar governments and asked party workers to tell people at the grassroots level about various achievements of the Union and the state governments.
