BHUBANESWAR: Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan on Monday credited party senior and Union Minister for Home Affairs Amit Shah for taking the BJP to new heights and hailed his untiring efforts to build a strong and secure nation.
Releasing the a book titled 'Amit Shah O BJP ra Yatra', the Odia translation of 'Amit Shah and the March of BJP' authored by Anirban Ganguli and Shiwananda Dwivedi, at a function here, Pradhan described Shah as an organisation man, a strategist par excellence and the architect behind BJP's historic electoral victories in 2019.
Sharing some of his personal experience with Shah, Pradhan said the former has a nerve of steel which he displayed by repealing the contentious Article 370 of the Constitution.
Narrating the incidents prior to the modification of the controversial Article 370, Pradhan said Prime Minister Narendra Modi advised Shah to consult noted Constitutional lawyer and former Minister Arun Jaitely on the matter.
“I accompanied Shah to meet Jaitely who was hospitalised then. On hearing the subject from Shah, he said are you mad?’’ You don’t have the requisite two-third majority. How it will be possible,” Pradhan recounted. A determined Shah told Jaitely that a subsection of the Article allows suspension of special provisions and this can be possible with simple majority.
Pradhan who has been aggressively propounding to recognise the Paika rebellion in 1817 as the first war of Independence said Shah has assured to do the needful and all requisite historical records and evidence have been provided to him in this connection.
BJD MLA and Sambad Editor Soumya Ranjan Patnaik said the book on Shah is a fitting tribute to the man who changed the political landscape by making politics a 24x7 job. Eminent journalist and former MP Swapan Dasgupta, authors Ganguly and Dwivedi and publisher of the book Praveen Tiwari also gave insights into the book.