On a day when Prime Minister Narendra Modi kick started fresh membership drive for the saffron party from Varanasi, senior BJP leader and former union minister Kabindra Purkayastha cautioned the party leadership against inducting ‘other’ leaders into the party.
In an exclusive interview to Northeast Now on Saturday at his residence, Purkayastha talked about his unhappiness over the current state of affairs of the saffron party.
Referring to many Congress leaders, including former and sitting MLAs willing to join the BJP, Purkayastha said, “Now when BJP is in power at the centre as well as in the state, Congress leaders are thinking about their personal gains. But, we need to see whether these leaders are willing to take the responsibility of our party and hold our ideologies intact or not.”
“We have been recruiting members on a mass scale since 1980 to make BJP the biggest national party of this country. Recruitment will go on now also, but we must see that there is no harm while roping in whosoever we are recruiting or making a member of our party. Even one very senior Congress leader of Barak valley approached me for joining the BJP, but I have asked him cordially to meet district and state BJP presidents in this regard,” said Purkayastha.
Asked about the Mariani MLA Rupjyoti Kurmi, who is willing to join BJP, should be given a ministerial berth, Purkayastha said that he is totally against it.
“I am totally against it. Anyone who wants to join BJP, no matter how big a leader he or she is, there should not be any pre-condition of joining the party. If there is any demand before joining our party, I think we should not allow such persons in BJP,” he added.
The veteran leader also expressed concern over the growing distance between the old and new BJP leaders in Assam and Northeast and said that the party leaders must need to safeguard the ideologies and keep moving forward.
Reacting to the union budget 2019-20, he said that that the budget is for the poor and the weaker sections of our society.
“The budget is tailor-made for the ‘new India’ that has been dreamt by our Prime Minister Narendra Modi. I have been reading the newspapers and watching news channels today morning and the reviews by economists and financial experts have termed this budget as an ‘exceptional’ one,” said Purkayastha.