Against the backdrop of the Bharatiya Janata Party's defeat in three states, senior leader and Union Minister Prakash Javadekar said Thursday the BJP is a "thinking party" which analyses its position even when it wins, and introspection is a continuous process which it is doing.
Addressing the Lokmat National Conclave here, he said the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) will, in long run, "regret" ending ties with the BJP and the Congress would have fared better in Telangana had it not joined hands with Chandrababu Naidu.
"The BJP's biggest quality is that we are a thinking party even when we win. Winning and losing is a reality and introspection is a continuous process which we are doing," Javadekar said.
"What people think when they vote cannot be known. In Madhya Pradesh we got 30,000 more votes and in Rajasthan we got 1.5 lakh less votes but reality remains that we lost," he said.
It is also a reality that the BJP is still the ruling party in 16 states, compared to 2014 when the party had governments in just six states, Javadekar said.
Taking a dig at the Congress, he said, "While the Congress is a family's party, the BJP is a party which is like a big family."
"With demonetisation, people got their money back. The main questions facing farmers are how much they produce and what price they get for it... Farmers distress is a major question which will remain not only now but in next election too," the BJP leader said.
He also termed Congress' policies "anti-farmer" and alleged that due to this, the farmers did not get the right price for their produce in the last 50 years.
"We did what we could in the last four years. During Atal Bihari Vajpayee's rule we decided to give regulatory prices under the Swaminathan Commission (recommendation) to farmers, but these prices were not given from 2006 to 2014. It was us who gave these prices farmers," the Union minister said.
He claimed that the Minimum Support Price (MSP) has increased one-and-a-half times now, compared to what it was in 2014 and listed out various employment opportunities provided by the BJP government to the youth.
"During Congress' rule, seven kilometre of highway was getting constructed per day which is 28 km now, and employment increases that way. The IT sector has expanded. In the last four years, 60 lakh people retired and 60 lakh were employed in their place. Tourism growth is the fastest in the world at 14 per cent, which is providing employment. The number of flights have increased by 16 per cent," Javadekar said.
"We have full confidence that people will give (Narendra) Modiji five more years. How decisions are taken by a coalition government depends on how favourable it is for the country's development. The Shiv Sena and we have a different kind of relationship. We never betray anyone supporting us," he said.
On the importance of regional parties, he said, "Every state has a voter base and they run on different ideologies. I am not saying that regional leaders do not have national thinking but their decisions are influenced by immediate political gains and that is why it is important that a national party continues to play a main role but in the NDA we aim to expand and we believe in 'Sabka Saath Sabka Vikas'.
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