22 Feb : As a part of its overall election campaign, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) launched an innovative student outreach initiative called ‘Advani @ Campus’. The programme was formally inaugurated by Shri Arun Shourie at a rousing function held at the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in Delhi, on Friday 20th February.
The event took place late in the evening at JNU’S Tapti Hostel. Shri Shourie impressed the large student audience with a speech aptly titled, ‘The Change We Need’. He effectively highlighted the gross shortcomings of the UPA government, and underscored the NDA’s impressive track record in the same areas when it was in office at the Centre for six years between 1998 and 2004. He also contrasted the track records of BJP/NDA-ruled states and those governed by the Congress. He emphasized the need for a strong leader like Shri L.K. Advani, who can be trusted to lead the country through this precarious juncture that the UPA government has brought us to.
Shri Shourie outlined the five key qualities we should look for in such a leader — competence, integrity, respect for institutions and norms, nationalistic fervour and commitment to the country. On all these counts, he said, Shri Advani is unmatched by any other likely prime ministerial candidate.
After an hour-long, inspiring and stimulating speech, the floor was thrown open for questions. That his speech was thought provoking was evident from the numerous questions he fielded from the young audience on topics ranging from terrorism to caste- based reservations. The young audience just could not get enough of Mr Shourie’s sharp wit and deep insights. He even managed to field a few questions on his way out, using a dining hall bench as a make-shift dais.
The Delhi State Coordinator of the Advani @ Campus Programme is Shri Swadesh Singh and the JNU Campus Coordinators of the Advani @ Campus Programme are Shri Anjani Kumar Shrivastava, Shri Manoj Kumar, Shri Ranjeet Kumar, and Shri Sushant.
The message of Advani @ Campus will be taken forward by several hundred volunteers who will fan out to over 5000 colleges across the country. Managed by the LK Advani Communications Office, the Advani @ Campus programme is designed as a grassroots campaign that seeks to contact and mobilise young voters in thousands of college campuses across the country. They will communicate Shri Advaniji’s vision for Young India, as part of his agenda for Good Governance, Development and Security.
Advani @ Campus is the second major initiative of the LK Advani Communications Office. The first initiative undertake by this Office has been the setting up of India’s largest political website—http://www.lkadvani.in—for Shri LK Advani. The website currently gets about half a million unique visitors every month.
The combination of Advaniji’s website and the Advani @ Campus programme results in a unique synergy and promises to deliver quantum results in the efforts to reach out to Young India