A dynastic party can never take India forward: Amit Shah's jibe at Congress

New Delhi: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Chief Amit Shah on Saturday took a jibe at the Congress, saying a party which considers "dynasty" as its quality benchmark, can never take the country forward.

Addressing a convention of the party in Delhi, Shah said among all the political parties in the country, only the BJP and the "Communist party" have internal democracy.

To drive home his point, Shah threw a poser to the audience, seeking to know who will occupy the post of the BJP president after him.

As the audience remained quiet, he asked: "Now tell me who will be the next Congress President after Soniaji (Gandhi)?"

Following a pause, when the audience broke into a laughter, Shah continued, "That says a lot. If dynasty, instead of merit is the benchmark in a party, then it can never take the country forward."

Shah said Congress, formed before the country's independence, never had any consistent ideology and whoever wanted freedom joined it.

"That is why Gandhiji wanted it (Congress) to be disbanded after independence," he said. Listing the achievements of the BJP-led NDA government at the Centre, including the decision to demonetise high-value currency last year, he said, "We take decisions that are good for the people. Our aim is not to increase votes, but to develop the country".

Addresing the party's 'prominent citizens of Delhi' programme at the NDMC Convention Centre here, Shah called for a comperative study on the work of governments of different political parties'.

"Post independence, people have seen governments of four different kind of political parties', including the Congress, communists, regional parties and the BJP in the country and in different states.

"The kind of work they have done for the people can easily be compared. the Congress and the regional parties got long governance spells and made states like Uttar Pradesh and Bihar 'Bimaru' (sick)," he said.

'BI' was known as Bihar which was in a good shape when BJP and JD(U) were there, the BJP chief said.

"M and R was known for Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan respectively, where progress can be seen," he said, adding that 'U' stands for Uttar Pradesh where the BJP has formed a government and in five years, the image of the state will be changed.

Listing the BJP-led government's achievements, Shah said that in the country, creating jobs was only meant to give government jobs or private company jobs, but Prime Minister Narendra Modi government gave a new vision of self-employment through very low interests, turning jobseekers into job givers.

Lauding the Modi government, he said that usually the central government do two or three historic work in their 50 years of rule, "but the Modi government has done 50 such works in the last three years".

"Under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP wants to create such India where power, water and gas connection are there in every household and roads in villages.

"For the development of the country and the welfare of the poor people, BJP-led central government has introduced 106 schemes," he said.