BJP president Nitin Gadkari on Saturday criticised Congress for its way of handling the situation in Andhra Pradesh.
“Congress is unable to handle the situation in Andhra Pradesh and has set the whole state on fire,” Mr. Gadkari said in Mumbai on his first visit to the city after taking charge of the party chief.
On the question of separate Vidarbha, Mr. Gadkari said “We are in favour of small States. Atal Biharijee successfully carved (out) Jharkhand, Uttarakhand and Chhattisgarh. But Congress has failed to handle issue of separate Telangana.”
Mr. Gadkari sought to boost the morale of the party activists by saying that they are the real strength of the party and he also started his political career as a small party worker.
“It is possible only in a party like BJP that a small worker has become the national president. Therefore, I would not forget the state from where I started my career,” said Mr. Gadkari, who hails from Nagpur.
In the backdrop of the BJP’s defeat in Lok Sabha and Maharashtra Assembly polls, Mr. Gadkari remarked that a man is not finished when he loses, but when he quits.
The 52-year-old former Minister assured the activists to increase the party votes by 10 per cent in next polls and focus on poor people in the society.
BJP MP Gopinath Munde, who has been recently given charge of Deputy Leader of the party in Lok Sabha, said his responsibility is to prepare the party for polls in 2014.
Mr. Munde, rubbished the charges that BJP has weakened after defeat in Lok Sabha and Maharashtra Assembly. “BJP is not weak but we have 117 MPs in the Parliament and ruling in eight States,” he said.
Both the leaders were welcomed by the party activists in a huge function held here in the party office in south Mumbai.
Mr. Gadkari would also be meeting ally Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray at latter’s residence Matoshree in suburban Bandra on Monday.
