20 Dec : A rousing welcome was accorded to newly elected National BJP President Nitin Gadkari on his arrival in Nagpur on Sunday, a day after his elevation to the highest party post.
Hundreds of party workers sporting saffron turbans, dress materials, party flags, scarves, posters, banners with
Gadkari’s photographs greeted him as soon as he came out of terminal building at Ambedkar International Airport.
BJP state leader Kirit Somaiya, MP Hansraj Ahir, along with Vidarbha party legislators, former MP Banwarilal Purohit, Mayor of BJP-ruled Nagpur Municipal Corporation Maya Iwnate were among the prominent present on the occasion.
Gadkari was taken in an open decorated vehicle through the main streets of city from city airport to his Mahal residence.
BJP gets its youngest chief in Gadkari
Nitin Gadkari was on Saturday appointed the BJP President at a meeting of the Parliamentary Board of the party, marking a generational change in its hierarchy.
The 52-year-old leader succeeds Rajnath Singh to become the youngest president of the party and the first one from Maharashtra.Gadkari was elected the party chief at the meeting attended by senior BJP leaders L K Advani, Rajnath Singh, Sushma Swaraj, Arun Jaitley and others.
Earlier in the day, Gadkari said he did not view politics as a career but as an instrument of socio-economic reforms to bring about a change in the lives of the poor and the downtrodden.”I don’t work as if I am making a political career. I work for the poor and downtrodden sections of society who don’t have food to eat, house to live in or clothes to wear. I strive to bring about a transformation in their lives,” he said.
The party was effecting a generational change in its hierarchy.Advani yesterday stepped down as the Leader of Opposition paving way for Sushma Swaraj to don the mantle.He was chosen at a meeting of party MPs to the newly-created post of Chairman of the party’s Parliamentary Party.