Hours ahead of filing his nomination for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections from Gujarat’s Gandhinagar, BJP chief Amit Shah said that “he started off as a booth-level worker and now he is the president of the world’s largest party”.

Calling it a big day, Shah while addressing a huge crowd at the ‘Vijay Sankalp Sabha’ said, “I stand here today before filing my nomination from Gandhinagar… I started here in 1982 as a booth-level worker… From distributing pamphlets, putting up posters, doing booth-level work, today I am fortunate that my party – the BJP – has made me the national president of the world’s largest party. It has been a great journey for me”.

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He added that he was nothing if he was separated from the party.

Further on, the party chief said he was blessed that he was getting to contest from the very seat from which veteran leaders like Atal Bihari Vajpayee and LK Advani contested. “This is an honour for me,” Shah said.

The BJP had replaced veteran leader LK Advani with Amit Shah in Gandhinagar Lok Sabha constituency while announcing the first list of 184 candidates for the Lok Sabha Elections 2019.

The Gandhinagar seat is currently held by LK Advani who has been winning the seat consecutively for six terms from 1998 but now current party chief Amit Shah will be making his Lok Sabha debut from here.

In a massive show of unity, Union Ministers Rajnath Singh, Nitin Gadkari, Piyush Goyal, Ram Vilas Paswan, Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray, Shiromani Akali Dal leader Parkash Singh Badal and others were also present at the ‘Vijay Sankalp Sabha’ in Gandhinagar.

The leaders are expected to accompany Amit Shah during filing of his nomination papers, BJP’s Gujarat unit president Jitu Vaghani had said on Friday.

All these leaders are also accompanying him in the 4-km-long roadshow from Sardar Patel statue in Naranpura, that will culminate at the Patel Statue of Patidar Chowk in KK Nagar that is part of Gandhinagar Lok Sabha constituency.

Union Minister Rajnath Singh in his address congratulated Amit Shah and said the party chief will live up to the expectations of the constituency.

“I have come here to congratulate Amit Shah on this significant move… He is going to contest from the seat where our veteran leader LK Advani used to contest. This is a big move, and I am sure Amit Shah will live up to the expectations of this constituency,” Singh said.

He further appealed to the people to come together and convey a message to Congress president Rahul Gandhi that “Chowkidar chor nahi hai, chowkidar pure hai” (The watchman is not a thief, he is pure).

Targeting the Congress, he asked, “If Indira Gandhi can get credit for dividing Pakistan, why shouldn’t PM Narendra Modi get credit for Balakot strike?”

Union Minister Nitin Gadkari said Amit Shah had made the BJP the largest party in the world.

Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray, on ironing out the differences with ally BJP, said, “When we sat together we solved our issues, our disagreements.”

After the road show, BJP workers will also form a human chain in Gandhinagar to welcome Shah for the filing of nomination papers.

Polling for all the 26 seats of Gujarat will take place on April 23.