BJP can move
mountains: Advaniji

In his opening remarks at the National Executive meeting of BJP at Rajatjayanti Nagar,Mumbai on December 26, 2006 BJP President Shri Lal Krishna Advani recounted the achievements of the party during the last 25 years and called the partymen to look ahead. With the qualities of “self-confidence, dedication, discipline, commitment, hard work and determination”, Shri Advani said, “we can move mountains”. Here is the full text of his speech:

Esteemed colleagues,

I welcome you all to this National Executive meeting which is being held as a prelude to the Rajat Jayanti Session of the Bharatiya Janata Party.

This is going to be the last meeting of this Executive, and the last meeting which I shall be presiding over.

The first session of the party was held on 27th, 28th and 29th of December, 1980 in Mumbai at Bandra. It is exactly twenty-five years later at Bandra again that our Party is having its Silver Jubilee Session.

These twenty-five years have been really tumultuous for our Party. In his 1980 Presidential Speech Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee concluded his peroration with these words:- “Standing on the shores of this ocean beneath the Western Ghats, I can say this with confidence about the future: Darkness will be dispelled, the Sun will rise and the Lotus shall bloom.”

The tens of thousands of delegates who had assembled here for that session left Mumbai fired with enthusiasm and confidence. And together, we have really made history. The Lotus has bloomed with splendour and fragrance beyond anyone’s imagination.

It is in these twenty-five years that the single party dominance of the Congress Party has been smashed. The BJP has made spectacular strides and converted India’s polity into a bipolar polity, with BJP and Congress as the two principal poles of national politics.

Thanks to the six years of NDA rule (1998-2004), India has become a nuclear power and the economy has undergone a metamorphosis. The NDA’s slogan that we shall make India a fully developed country by 2020, which at one time seemed a tall order, is now acknowledged by all economic analysts as being within the realm of possibility.

In my political life of more than half a century, I can count twelve defining years:

Each of these major events has been an educative experience in its own distinctive way. Some brought us joy and filled us with energy. Others were setbacks and created uncertainty about the future and forced us to introspect. But never once did we lose confidence in ourselves or faith in the path we chose way back in 1951, a choice which we renewed in 1980.

Who would have imagined in all our twenty-four years in the Jana Sangh that one day we would form a Government at the Centre? Who would have imagined this even in 1985, just twenty years ago? But we succeeded because of our faith in ourselves, our dedication, discipline, commitment and hard work. And because of our determination, our unwavering desire to work for making India a Great Nation.

I commend these qualities to all of you once again: self-confidence, dedication, discipline, commitment, hard work, and determination. And, the inborn desire to see that India emerges as a great nation. With these qualities, we can move mountains. With these qualities, we can achieve revival and bounce back stronger than ever before.

Ultimately, what matters more than the journey itself is what one has learnt from that journey. I have no doubt—and I am sure that none of you have any doubt—that we have collectively learnt immensely from our journey during these twenty-five years. For me too it has been a period of great learning, more particularly the year just about to end.