The Bhartiya Janata Party is all set to shift to its new swanky office at the capital’s Deen Dayal Upadhyay Marg (near ITO), after Makar Sankranti next month. At present, it operates from 11, Ashoka Road, in the heart of Lutyens’ Delhi.
A party leader said construction work of the new office has almost been completed and they hoped to shift there after 14 January. “Initially, we were supposed to shift on 25 December, the birthday of former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee. However, the plan changed,” he said.
The shifting may coincide with the National Executive committee meeting, during which the party will take stock of its performance in the Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh elections and discuss strategies for the four states—Tripura, Meghalaya, Nagaland and Karnataka—that will go to the polls in the first half of 2018. A date and venue for the meeting are likely to be finalised soon.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and party president Amit Shah had laid the foundation stone of the new building on 18 August 2016.
The new office, built on two-acre land on 6, DDU Marg, is much bigger, spacious and has 70 rooms. It is 5 km away from the present party office. The building will be equipped with all the modern technological facilities to link the office with party units in states and districts.
It is a seven-storey building with an underground parking, conference rooms,, auditoriums, studios for spokespersons and other leaders to participate in TV debates, library, documentation centre, reading room, media centre, a canteen and cafeteria. The complex will be adaptable in catering to Z+ security for the Prime Minister and other dignitaries.
The plot on DDU Marg was allotted to the BJP a few years ago. Other political parties also got plots in the same area, with a view to getting bungalows in the Lutyens’ Zone vacated.
The is the first big party which has taken the initiative to move out from Luteyns’ Zone.
During the tenure of Nitin Gadkari as the BJP president, the existing party office at Ashoka Road saw many developments. An auditorium and several other office rooms were constructed in 2011-2012. However, it was felt that the party needed a bigger space and more facilities for better functioning.