The BJP is set to inaugurate its swanky new party headquarters. It will be first time in the history of the 38-year-old party that it would have a permanent address.
From the Lutyens Delhi bungalow at 11 Ashoka Road, which has been the party headquarters for decades, the ruling party will shift to 6 Deendayal Upadhyaya Marg, a few kilometres away.
For the saffron party, the move will be like coming home. Upadhyaya was a leading member of the Jana Sangh, the forerunner of BJP. The saffron party commits itself to the philosophy of the Sangh ideology, of which Upadhyaya was one of the most prominent proponents.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will inaugurate the office on Sunday. The party was able to build the headquarters in 18 months since the foundation stone was laid in August 2016.
BJP chief Amit Shah had started the process of building a party office in all district headquarters of the country to cement its presence nationwide.
The new building has two portions: the first one is three storeys in size and the second part is a seven-storey complex, which will house offices of the party leaders, auditoriums, meeting rooms and a studio for leaders to link with TV studios for discussions.
The party headquarters will be linked through videoconferencing to all the state headquarters of the party and will have a state-of-the-art library boasting of party literature and subscriptions to some of the latest journals from across the world.
The BJP often prides itself as the world's largest political party, so the new headquarters will be presented as a testament to that confidence and aims to be a permanent fixture in the country’s polity.
When Modi will inaugurate the party office building in the presence of the veterans like L.K. Advani and M.M. Joshi, in addition to leaders such as Amit Shah and Rajnath Singh, it will be a moving moment for many.
Entry to the office will be regulated initially, though its full features will be revealed eventually.
Unlike the spartan facilities of the left parties—CPI(M) and CPI—the two national parties, which have their own party offices, the BJP office will have the feel of a corporate building.
The Congress currently operates at 24 Akbar Road, also a Lutyens' bungalow. It has been served an eviction notice. Though it has been allotted land near DDU Marg, it is yet to start construction of a new office.
However, the new party office for the BJP will come with its own set of problems. Many feel it may lead to traffic snarls near Delhi's ITO junction, the city's busiest, whenever there is VIP movement.