BJP workers greet Amit Shah on his arrival in Jaipur on Friday. (Express Photo by Rohit Jain Paras)
BJP national president Amit Shah on Friday said that if India is among the fastest growing nations, it is because the Narendra Modi government takes decisions that may not be populist or “feel good” to the people but “are good” for them. “The BJP government doesn’t take decisions that feel good to people, but those which are good for the people,” Shah said, addressing a meeting with the intelligentsia of Jaipur.
He said the Union government had introduced 106 new schemes and programmes in its three years and all of them were aimed at welfare of the people. Shah’s comments, on the first day of his three-day visit here, were aimed at a cross section of society — lawyers, doctors, traders who were present at the meeting — in light of demonetisation and more recently, GST.
Praising the BJP, Shah asked the people to compare for themselves the workings of various political parties on three factors: internal democracy, principles and running governments. He said that the BJP emerges as the best among all. “Before buying an earthen pot, we tap it to check its strength; we should do the same for political parties,” Shah said. “Can anyone predict who will be president after me?” he asked; as people said no, he asked if they could tell who would be the Congress’ next president after Sonia Gandhi.
“When some parties cannot maintain internal democracy, how can they ensure democracy in the country?” he said. Emphasising the value of merit in the BJP, he recalled how he rose from being a party booth worker with negligible caste weight to the post of party president. “We have thrown out nepotism, casteism and appeasement, and Uttar Pradesh elections are a testimony to that,” he said.
He also said that the BJP is the only party that sticks to its ideology while the Congress has always lacked one. “After Independence, when the government started creating policies, people noted that they had Western influences. They did not have the smell of the nation’s soil. Hence Jana Sangh was created with an ideology,” Shah said.
He said that years after the Congress’ constitution, it became a vehicle for the Indian Independence movement and people of all ideologies jumped in. “Since its constitution, Congress wasn’t a party of principles,” he added.
