BJP veterans finally show up at party event

Moreover, after a long time Advani has also figured on the posters of the ceremony alongside the party’s star face PM Narendra Modi. Ever since relinquishing the PM candidature in 2014, Advani’s equation with Modi turned frosty. The party veteran’s utterances against the latter, widened the chasm between the leaders.

Having over 1000 MLAs, more than 300 MPs, the Bharatiya Janata Party now feels its present headquarters, located on 11-Ashoka Road in Lutyen’s Delhi is “inadequate for a rapidly growing organization”.  Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP president Amit Shah performed the Bhoomi Poojan ceremony on Thursday morning.

The new BJP headquarters is being developed on an 8000-square-metre plot. It will have 70% green area with 70 rooms. Sources said, the building is expected to be inaugurated on former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s birthday on December 25, 2018.

A Mumbai- based architect, Arvind Nandapurkar of Nandapurkar Associates has been drafted in to build the two-acre plot on DDU Marg. With a view of vacating bungalows in the Capital’s protected Lutyen’s Zone as office space and making the bungalows available in the Parliamentary housing pool again, the plot was allotted to BJP a few years ago. Incidentally, BJP is the first big party to initiate the move out of it’s original headquarters. 

After formation of the Bharatiya Janata Party, former party leaders used 11 Ashoka Road as a meeting place. That bungalow had been allotted to Jagdish Prasad Mathur, one of the founding members of the Jan Sangh after he was nominated to the Rajya Sabha in 1978.

The new head quarters will be a three-building cluster, a central one with seven stories which shall have office space, screening rooms, conference and seminar rooms, a big conference room that can accommodate 400 people, and two smaller buildings of three floors each for various other personal offices of party leaders. 

Meanwhile, sources said, the design pattern will be “traditional on the outside, but completely modern with its gadgetry and connectivity.” The entire pattern will be shaped like a Lotus, the party symbol, and will have an underground car park for up to 200 vehicles. Solar panels will be set up, and a big lawn will be developed. There was a proposal for a helipad, considering that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visits to the party headquarters have security implications, but that will be decided eventually.

The construction will take up to two years. Party men and women have been asked to contribute to the building fund. The project cost has been pegged at Rs 65 crore. This could escalate in the days to come.