We all love travelling but there are few trips which transforms your life completely and change your attitude towards things around. Such a trip was when I was given the opportunity to travel to New Delhi with a group of volunteers from India First to learn more about the way in which our government and visit the Parliament, Rashtrapati Bhavan and Rajghat.
We reached Delhi on December 7th and joined rest of the delegation in afternoon at Old Maharashtra Sadan. The venue is situated close to India Gate and the broad roads and amazing infrastructure was mesmerizing. We went to Rashtrapati Bhawan in the evening and covered every nook and corner of multi-acre premises and watching Mughal Garden where Modi’s oath ceremony took place was icing on the cake. In the evening, we had dinner with Ms. Poonam Mahajan and she connected with all of us so well that for a moment I forgot that she is a Parliamentarian. Her oratory and liveliness reminded me of her father who had amazing leadership qualities and it was quite evident that she had inherited all these traits from him. She carried herself really well and was well versed and familiar about problems and concerns in her constituency. From illegal slums in Bandra East to cutting of mangroves in Bandra West, she was aware about everything happening around. The most praiseworthy thing was her presence on ground level and co-ordination with the local authorities, MLA's, Municipal Corporators, activists and NGO’. She is a very quick learner and capable of becoming a cabinet minister in future.
Next morning we visited temple of democracy "Parliament" and also got to observe the session in Loksabha. Poonam guided us how one is supposed to ask question in question hour and she gave us the hand book of procedures. From Loksabha gallery, I saw all political stalwarts from Sonia Gandhi, LK Advani, Rajnath Singh, Owaisi, Jyotiraditva Scindia, and Uma Bharti. We happened to meet Mr. Piyush Goyal as well outside the Rajyasabha lobby and clicked pictures with Rajyawardhan Singh Rathore and Raghav Lakhanpal. Just after sometime, we got our surprise of the visit and that was meeting with Amit Shah at his residence. Amit Shah is truly the modern Chanakya of Indian Politics. We interacted with him for an hour and he answered all our questions after a brief one on one introduction. He has meek voice and humble persona at the same time he speaks after thinking hundred times. He spoke about reviving the economy and measures taken by the Government in strengthening national security. He spoke about daunting tasks which this Government will be looking at in near future.
The most important thing which I guess we all learnt was that though a Parliamentarian represents a constituency and is answerable to people but at the same time his job is much to get funds from the Central Government through MP Lad quota. He does not look after in day to day affairs of his constituency and administrative work on ground level. The problem is that we do not know whom to approach for what as some things are just not under their control. Mr. Shah and Poonam also emphasized on the fact that things won’t change overnight and will take some time. He mentioned that in past 25 years, it is the first time we have a stable Government and has free hand to take aggressive steps for the development and prosperity of the Country. We all were inspired and left Delhi on a good note as we got more than what we expected. For me more than the trip it was a journey.