As Gadkari hummed a ‘youth first’ tune and Advani alluded to the party’s fourth generation leaders, the BJP chanted a new political mantra at its national convention, reports Anil Pandey
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has changed, and how! The first national convention of the party took place in Mumbai in 1980 and 50,000 workers attended it, living in tents for the event. The then party president Atal Bihari Vajpayee addressed the inaugural convention, clad in his trademark dhoti-kurta ensemble.
Thirty years on, the symbolic simplicity of the tents and the ethnic attire of its tallest leader remain relevant. At the party’s three-day meet in Indore, the tents were up again, but the latter gave way to a flashier sartorial statement.
This year, too, there were tents, but the party’s national president came dressed in a pair of trousers and a shirt to deliver a Power Point presentation to a party that is struggling for survival. Also, among the largely ageing audience sat a few workers with goggles perched on their selves to go with colourful shirts, providing perhaps a subtle indication of where the party is headed.
Be it the party’s 30-year-old, progressive thinking MLA from Maharashtra Jaikumar Rawal or the equally forward-looking Delhi BJP secretary Virendra Sachdev, these scattered faces, looking as modern in their attire as they are known to be in their thought processes, bore testimony to the fact that a party wedded to tradition and the old order was willing to embrace change.
The process of change, of course, is neither easy nor natural. After the party’s drubbing in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections the BJP appears to have realised rather well that in order to strengthen its future prospects in the electoral arena, the young will have to be included in its ranks and be given more power.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has changed, and how! The first national convention of the party took place in Mumbai in 1980 and 50,000 workers attended it, living in tents for the event. The then party president Atal Bihari Vajpayee addressed the inaugural convention, clad in his trademark dhoti-kurta ensemble.
Thirty years on, the symbolic simplicity of the tents and the ethnic attire of its tallest leader remain relevant. At the party’s three-day meet in Indore, the tents were up again, but the latter gave way to a flashier sartorial statement.
This year, too, there were tents, but the party’s national president came dressed in a pair of trousers and a shirt to deliver a Power Point presentation to a party that is struggling for survival. Also, among the largely ageing audience sat a few workers with goggles perched on their selves to go with colourful shirts, providing perhaps a subtle indication of where the party is headed.
Be it the party’s 30-year-old, progressive thinking MLA from Maharashtra Jaikumar Rawal or the equally forward-looking Delhi BJP secretary Virendra Sachdev, these scattered faces, looking as modern in their attire as they are known to be in their thought processes, bore testimony to the fact that a party wedded to tradition and the old order was willing to embrace change.
The process of change, of course, is neither easy nor natural. After the party’s drubbing in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections the BJP appears to have realised rather well that in order to strengthen its future prospects in the electoral arena, the young will have to be included in its ranks and be given more power.
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