Nitin Gadkari took several jibes at the "dynastic politics" of the Congress on Thursday to drive home the point that an ordinary worker can become the chief only in a party like BJP.
"BJP is not a party controlled by a family or a dynasty and this is what distinguishes it from most political parties in India, where the highest office is being treated as birth right of members of a particular dynasty," he told the National Council of the party, which ratified his election.
He said that a party worker from an ordinary family of a farmer in Nagpur has been bestowed the honour of presiding over the BJP. It gave him immense pride as "I do not have a pedigreed surname. I do not belong to a political family. Neither my father nor my grandmother was prime minister".
Noting that all its past presidents were "committed karyakartas" who grew up from the grass roots, he said that is what shows that the BJP is a party with a difference. "When I say that I cut my teeth as a ward-level political worker by canvassing for the Jan Sangh, in my early teens I am not telling anything new to you." He said that this was important given the fact that out of the 1,000 odd political parties in the country, there have been 50 major parties and out of them there was no dynastic politics in only five of them.
In an apparent dig at Rahul Gandhi's recent Mumbai visit during which he travelled in a local train, he said "Remember, for you and me when we move in cities like Mumbai travelling in crowded trains is a regular affair since we are all common citizens who routinely experience the daily suffering of the common commuters." PTI
