Presidential Speech Part-1

BHARATIYA JANATA PARTY
Presidential Address
By
Shri Nitin Gadkari
All-India President
National Council meeting of the BJP
Indore . 18 February 2010
Dear delegate brothers and sisters,

As I stand before you at this meeting of the National Council of the Bharatiya
Janata Party, I am overwhelmed by happiness, humility and pride. There are
moments in ones life when words fail to adequately express ones emotions. This
is one such moment in my life, the most important indeed.

I am happy because I can feel the tidal wave of enthusiasm and energy of the delegates of my Party who have congregated here in the historic city of Indore. It is you who bring the hopes and the aspirations, as also the dedication and determination, of millions of party karyakartas and supporters across the length and breadth of our great country. In you I see the same commitment to serve the Motherland that I had seen when I, as a young Party volunteer, had attended the founding conference of the BJP in Mumbai in 1980.

I am humbled by the enormous trust and confidence that the National Council has reposed in me. I had never in my life expected that I would be called upon to shoulder the responsibility of serving as President of this great party. I know, and I will state it without any hesitation, that there is no dearth of persons with requisite leadership capacity in our Party and there are many other leaders who too could have shouldered this responsibility. Yet, the party leadership and you unanimously elected me to occupy this position. I, as a disciplined soldier of the Party, accept this responsibility with a sense of mission.

Why this moment fills me with immense pride is because the honour of presiding over the BJP has been bestowed on somebody who is basically a Karyakarta. I do not have a pedigreed surname. I do not even belong to a political family. I was born in an ordinary family in Nagpur. I learnt my first lessons in patriotism and social service in RSS and ABVP.