The Hindu : Venkaiah takes charge as BJP chief

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Jul 02, 2002

National

National

Venkaiah takes charge as BJP chief

By Neena Vyas

The Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, giving sweets to the newly-elected BJP president, M. Venkaiah Naidu, at the party headquarters in New Delhi on Monday. Photo: Anu Pushkarna.

NEW DELHI JULY 1. It was festival time today at the Bharatiya Janata Party headquarters here where M. Venkaiah Naidu was formally installed as the new party president after Jana Krishnamurthi resigned from the position as he was being inducted into the Government.

The Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister and virtually all the BJP ministers in government were there to be present at the ``event'' which was marked by dancing, the beating of drums and bursting of firecrackers. While some of the women ministers — Sushma Swaraj, Uma Bharati and Sumitra Mahajan — carried long stem red roses to present to their new party chief, Cabinet Minister, Arun Shourie, carried a bouquet of carnations and others came with garlands and flowers to welcome Mr. Naidu and to join in the celebrations.

Mr. Naidu was duly anointed, red `bandhini' turban, marigold garlands, and all. And after the exchange of saffron-coloured `laddoos', he made an emotion-charged speech, recalling his work with the party as a ``humble ordinary worker.'' He said that he would be announcing his new team of office-bearers soon, but, immediately the former Law Minister, Arun Jaitley, would be the party spokesperson.(Earlier, Mr. Naidu had arrived at the party office with Mr. Jaitley).

Mr. Naidu indicated clearly that the BJP would not compromise on its ``own party issues''. The party should be a link between the Government and the people, and it would go forward with the ``BJP jhanda (flag)'' in one hand ``and the NDA agenda'' in the other.

He said he was aware of his new responsibility — the tallest leaders, Atal Behari Vajpayee and L.K.Advani — had held this position, and he was taking up his new assignment with ``all humility''. He did not forget to mention that the outgoing president was a senior leader of the party when he was a youngster and he thanked `Janaji' for proposing his name for the top job in the party.

Mr. Naidu said that he would ensure a ``live contact between the party and the Government'' and for this, Mr. Advani had agreed to give some time to the party and would regularly visit the party office.

The ``mantra'' for the Government would be development and for the party the ``mantra'' would be expansion, he said, clearly indicating that it would be his job to arrest the shrinking of the BJP's political space at the grassroots level.

Earlier, the central party office-bearers met with Mr. Krishnamurthi in the chair. While announcing his resignation as party president he spoke about the need for each and every member to give his best to the party organisation.

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