Taking a swipe at the Congress over the issue of dynastic politics, BJP president Amit Shah today said that political parties whose internal democracy was not intact could never contribute towards making the country's democracy stronger. Hitting out at the Congress and the INLD, Shah said both these parties lacked principle and centred around dynastic politics.
The BJP president is on a three-day visit to Haryana. He addressed a gathering of intellectuals and eminent citizens here this evening.
He told the gathering that a party where internal democracy was finished could not do any good to democracy.
"Parties who do not have internal democracy can never make the nation's democracy stronger. And if any party runs on any one individual's thoughts, even then it cannot contribute to the democracy," Shah told the gathering where Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar and senior BJP leaders including Ram Lal, Anil Jain and Subhash Barala were also present.
"After 70 years of the country's independence, 1,650 parties were formed and out of these, if we see how many parties' internal democracy still intact, you will find it in only one or two parties including the BJP," he said.
Raising the issue of dynastic politics in the Congress, Shah asked the gathering "after Sonia Gandhi, who will become the next Congress chief," to this the gathering replied Rahul Gandhi.
"Tell me who will become BJP president after me," Shah said and after a silence in the hall, the BJP president told that "you don't have an answer because the BJP does not choose anyone as its president by virtue of his birth in a particular family".
"Anyone who has capability, determination and conviction to take the country forward and believes in our policies and ideologies can become the party chief in BJP," he said. Citing his own example, he said, "It is only in the BJP that a worker who used to paste posters today became the national president of the party and a person (Narendra Modi) who came from a humble background rose to occupy the post of prime minister on the basis of hard work and merit."
He further said that in BJP every worker gets a chance to move forward. The party gives a platform to contribute to all its workers for the betterment of the nation.
Whereas in the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD), if the worker does not belong to the Chautala family, can he aspire to become chief minister of this state, Shah asked.
"Similarly in the Congress party, a meritorious worker who hails from Haryana, aspire to lead the party one day, the answer is no because he is not born into the Gandhi family," the BJP leader said.
The BJP chief highlighted several achievements of the Narendra Modi government.
The BJP believes that the last man standing in the queue has to benefit from various schemes and "our development model is based on that, which is all inclusive. The Narendra Modi- led government at the Centre and in Haryana, the Khattar government are trying to move ahead on this model", he said.
"It is a matter of fact that whenever BJP-led governments are formed, country progresses," he said.
Taking a dig at former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Shah said under the economist PM the country had a poor growth rate of just 4.4 per cent, whereas today India is the fastest growing economy in the world.
Shah also said that the previous Congress-led UPA government was hit by scams of Rs 12 lakh crore, "whereas not even the opposition parties have been able to point fingers at the BJP governments at the Centre and ruling some states".
With an eye on the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, Shah is travelling across the country to strengthen the party. He is on a 110-day nationwide tour which began in Jammu in April this year.
