NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi pledged on August 18 not to abandon party ideology even if this costs BJP relegation to the opposition in future as he asserted that the saffron outfit has suffered more post-Independence than Congress did under British rule.

“We shall not compromise with our ideology… even if it means sitting in opposition for years,” said Modi after performing `bhoomi pujan’ for the new BJP office building on Deendayal Upadhyay Marg here. He said that unlike other parties, BJP lives with its ideology , which has a long history of sacrifices and hard work of millions of committed party workers. He said BJP had to suffer a lot in the past as adversities were stacked against it with most of parties treating them as political untouchables.

“Even Congress did not suffer during the British period as much the BJP has suffered in the past 50-60 years since independence,” said Modi, addressing party workers and senior leaders including veterans LK Advani and MM Joshi. “There have been attempts to present BJP in bad light. When Jansangh formed the government in Madhya Pradesh, American agencies conducted a research about how our organi sation works,” said Modi.

He asked party workers to maintain record of the party feats for the coming generations as few in the world know about the party’s journey to this stage.
“Sacrifice of generations of karyakartas (workers) inspires us to work,” he said. He cited recent examples about how party suffered for the office space and it had been a challenge to think about an office in states like Bengal, which was a apparent hint towards BJP’s recent spate of tussle with the Trinamool Congress.