Inside BJP's 1.70 lakh sq ft newly-inaugurated head office

The Bharatiya Janata Party got a new address on Sunday, when their new headquarters, a multi-storeyed modern construction fitted with latest communication technologies, was inaugurated in the presence of top party leaders, including its president Amit Shah.

The new party office is located at Deen Dayal Upadhyay Marg and will make the BJP the first major national party to shift its office outside Lutyens’ Bungalow Zone.

The saffron party has been working from Ashoka Road while the main opposition Congress office is at Akbar Road and the two premises are part of the pool of government residences.

The BJP plans to move to the new office from the current one as early as next week, official sources said.

Modi and Shah had laid the foundation stone of the new headquarters in August last year and a Mumbai-based architecture company had designed it.

The premises has three buildings fitted with modern communication tools, enabling party office-bearers to co-ordinate official works with their counterparts in states and local levels in real time.

Inaugurating the new BJP central office, Prime Minister Narendra Modi Modi charted the party’s growth since its inception as Bhartiya Jana Sangh in 1951 and said it has never wavered from its founding ideals and is full of patriotism.

He said there were many leaders associated with the Congress during the struggle for freedom, but later parted ways to propagate their political values and founded new parties.

The Jana Sangh was founded because after Independence a need was felt to have one or two more strong national parties, Modi said.

“After Independence, Bhartiya Jana Sangh and then BJP led all agitations held in national interest in the country. And we are proud of it,” he told a gathering, which included party chief Amit Shah, a host of Union ministers and its office-bearers.

That is why the BJP is “dyed in the colour of patriotism” and is always willing to struggle and sacrifice for the cause of the nation, Modi said.

The party’s core values are steeped in democracy, he said, adding that it is guided by a democratic spirit in its thinking, working and executing its agenda.

At a time when some of his allies, including the Telugu Desam Party, have spoken about their differences with the BJP, the prime minister recalled the work of the Atal Bihari Vajpayee-led National Democratic Alliance government.

Vajpayee was successful in taking allies along while navigating regional aspirations and sparking a new hope in the country, Modi said, adding, “The root cause for this is that democracy is in our blood (‘rag rag mein hain’). That is why we are moving forward while taking everyone along to the best extent possible.”

-- With inputs from ANI