24 December,2009 01:44 PM IST | | IANS
Development should be the priority, Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) new chief Nitin Gadkari said on Thursday while emphasising that he didn't believe in criticism of the government for the sake of it.
"I don't believe in the criticism for the sake of criticism. I have not chosen politics as a career. I believe politics is an instrument of socio-economic reform," Gadkari said in his first news conference after he took over as the BJP president last week.
"Development should be our priority."
He assured full support to the government in the fight against terrorism and Maoist insurgency.
"We should fight terrorism together and I assure full support to the government if it wants to fight it firmly," he said.
Gadkari said the belief that the BJP was anti-minority was far from the truth.
"I don't believe in discrimination on the basis of religion and language. No such discriminations are acceptable. But appeasement of minorities had become the definition of secularism and appeasement of terrorists has now become the definition of secularism," he said.
