HYDERABAD: Frontrunners of the Bharatiya Janata Party who came in sizable numbers made sure that the saffron party’s footprints are more than enough for its young brigade -- Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM) -- to follow on when the nation goes to Lok Sabha polls in about 150 days.
Union minister Rajnath Singh, who inaugurated the BJYM National Convention, listed out the firsts the government has taken up in the four-year rule of the BJP, including the surgical strike against Pakistan.
“All needs and aspirations of the country are being realised. The Prime Minister, for the first time, has taken up an important role to lead the youth of India. In four years, we have left France behind to be in the top 10 economic powers,” he said while adding that India is poised to be on among top three economic powers by 2020.
Terming the youth as “agents of change,” Singh questioned the failure of previous governments to make India a developed nation.
“I want to ask those political parties which could not make India a developed country even after ruling for so long. They will not have an answer as the direction and purpose required to lead the youth of India was not provided,” he added.
On Day 1 of the two-day convention, Union minister for road transport and highways Nitin Gadkari reminisced about the yesteryears of the saffron party when it was called the Bharatiya Jana Sangh. And went on to add that the BJYM will steer the political future of the BJP where everyone should work without any desire for a position but only as a party worker.
“This is not a party of a family or a party which conducts its politics based on caste, creed, or religion. The party has never been called as the party of Atal Bihari Vajpayee or of Narendra Modi. The party is based on ideologies and not persons and for that reason, the nation’s interest come first,” he said. Union minister for petroleum and natural gas Dharmendra Pradhan raised, probably, a crucial question that the party workers are facing now -- ‘Why are petrol prices high?’ ‘Are these acche din?’
“I know the questions that you are, commonly, facing these days. I want to tell you that fuel is not a domestic commodity and its prices are not based on domestic market rates but of international prices,” he said while adding that “PM Narendra Modi is trying to influence the international prices during his recent foreign meetings.”