Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday praised Amit Shah on completing three years as the BJP President and on being elected to the Rajya Sabha, saying he had brought back the culture of hard work known in the Jan Sangh days.
Addressing the Bharatiya Janata Party's parliamentary party meeting here, Modi said Shah had steered it to be the largest democratic political party in the world, according to sources who attended the gathering.
Modi said it was easy to run a political party while being in the opposition but relatively difficult when it was in power.
It was the first meeting of the BJP parliamentary party attended by Shah after being elected from Gujarat to the Rajya Sabha.
The sources quoted Modi as saying that Shah had "brought back the work culture of the Jan Sangh".
The BJP is the successor to the Bharatiya Jan Sangh, which merged into the Janata Party in 1977. The BJP was formed in 1980.
Modi urged BJP MPs to work for the success of "Tiranga Yatra" (August 9-15) and "Sankalp Yatra" (August 15-30).
Stressing that the freedom movement from 1942 to 1947 was decisive in ending British rule, Modi said a similar effort had to be made in the next five years to take India to new heights by 2022, the 75th anniversary of the country's Independence.