We who are in public life have the responsibility to ensure that your vote is translated into good and responsive governance. As far as the BJP is concerned, I want our government to be judged by your expectations. I say this because we know what your expectations are. To enable you to succeed, to enable you to build a great India, the BJP promises you, I personally promise you, initiatives and reforms in five major areas.

First, we will work to ensure that each of you will have access to the best education possible.  
Second, that even the poorest student will receive financial aid to complete his or her education and improve their ability to find jobs that match their talents and abilities.  
Third, we will ensure security – so that you are able to live and travel without fear and work anywhere in this great country.  The problems of terrorism and naxalism will be tackled with a firm hand.
Fourth, we will work with you to protect our environment so that you can inherit a green and flourishing India.  Our holy rivers, our lakes, our mountains, our forests, our wildlife, our sea shore — all these are a part of India’s priceless natural resource. It is our duty, the duty of both the Government and the people, to preserve this resource.
Finally, we will work with you to improve our existing cities, to build beautiful new cities, to so improve amenities in our villages that you don’t feel compelled to leave them to go and stay in some urban slum.
How shall we fulfill this covenant?  Let us take them one at a time.  

Quality Education for All: First and foremost, we will liberate the education sector – so that the seats and facilities in it multiply and improve. It is a tragedy that, even as we have seen in sectors as far apart as manufacturing and telecom what freeing a sector can do, education continues under the old, licence-quota raj.  
There are too few public universities; private colleges charge too much; our teachers are not paid adequately for their unstinting service; too many of our students have to go abroad for higher education. On the one side, we cannot find good craftsmen and technicians. On the other, good jobs go unfilled – the list of problems is endless.  
We will open the doors to higher education and ensure that there are more than enough seats for all qualified students.  We will create incentives for all who want to promote learning; to set up good private colleges and universities; to partner with the best foreign institutions of learning; to set up many, many vocational training institutes; to develop the facilities for, and the culture of research and innovation in, India. We will thereby multiply seats for students, and also ensure that teachers are rewarded for their efforts.  
Our top educational institutions like IITs and IIMs will remain autonomous and be able to pursue academic excellence as they see fit. There will be no governmental interference in their functioning. We have the best students in the world; we will to ensure that they have access to the best academic institutions in the world. Our government will ensure financial aid for all deserving students through scholarships and loans.  
Many of our organizations strive to give you the opportunity to serve society through constructive work. I know that many of you want, in addition, to participate in public life, in crafting public policy. Our government will launch a new highly prestigious National Fellows program in honor of our distinguished leader, Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee. As a beginning, we will award special, national fellowships to young Indian leaders under the age of 25 with undergraduate degrees.  Each of these young leaders will receive a one year internship in a government organization.  At least 50 of these National Fellows will work in the Prime Minister’s Office and other ministries on policy assignments.   An independent eminent jury will select these National Fellows and all will be encouraged to apply.

Employment opportunities for all: Once talent has been transformed into abilities through the education system, there must be jobs that enable the young to stretch themselves to the maximum. New and exciting jobs will, of course, come through sunrise industries like IT and BPO, as they will through modern manufacturing. But much more can, and must be done. In services, we have just begun to scratch our potential: product and process design; surgery; civil engineering, accountancy, legal assistance, teaching from a distance by using new technologies.
I believe that productivising Indian agriculture through sound policies can create tens of thousands of rewarding and fulfilling jobs for our educated youth. For this we need technologies that can transform rural India. Technologies for water and soil conservation, for organic farming, for growing of new and higher-value crops – pulses, fruit, vegetables, for preserving what our kisans grow, and for ensuring that farmers get good credit and marketing facilities. We will pay priority attention to these areas, so that you can get good jobs — and good opportunities — in changing the face of rural India.

No compromise in the fight against terrorism: One of the great failures of the present Government has arisen from its weak approach to lawlessness and terrorism.  Often traveling in public transport can be unpleasant for you.  Many of you, especially girls and young women feel harassed and victimized.  Sometimes you are afraid to settle in parts of our country that are racked with violence or are hostile to outsiders.  
This is not the India we want.  We want an India where, in whichever part of the country, you choose, you can contribute your best. We will, therefore, resume the work we were doing to strengthen national security – from restoring necessary laws such as POTA, to ensuring they are enforced, to reforming and strengthening our security forces. We shall also ensure that their structures, work culture and emoluments and facilities improve so that many of you can look forward to fulfilling careers in them.

Protection of India’s priceless environment: Along with protecting you and your loved ones, we must also protect this beautiful country. I know that, more than most other sections of our people, the young are the ones who are most dedicated to preserving our environment. After all, we do not own this great country, we hold it in a trust for you, as do you for future generations.
Our government will transform the way in which we deal with environmental issues.  We will formulate environmental policies and regulations that will protect our environment and wildlife for generations to come. I want our governments to create a new regime of taxation and rewards – one in which people and industries are not penalized according to what they contribute to society, but in accordance with what they use up from the pool of our non-renewable resources, in accordance with the harm they inflict on our environment. We will constitute an independent Environment Management Authority that will be headed by a world-famous environmental expert and will be staffed with eminent scientists. This agency will help us formulate the best possible plans for our environment and wildlife, and keep every government accountable.

Transforming Urban India: I come next to our villages and cities. Our first priority must be to create in our villages the facilities and opportunities that will provide jobs and a fulfilling life right there – so that you do not feel compelled to flee them to some urban slum. Second, we must improve our cities.  They are not in a good condition.  There is no need to repeat the unpleasant facts that fester all around us. Many empty promises have been made – of making Mumbai an international financial center, for instance. You know what has been done about them. We will fix our existing cities and build many new beautiful cities.  
This requires coordinated action on many fronts including strengthening urban property rights, enforcing land use restrictions, establishing good property tax collections, and reforming our municipal governance.  We will work on all of this in our existing cities.  But, we promise more – we promise that we will build cities that you will be proud to live in, cities that will welcome our brothers and sisters from rural areas, cities that will be green and pleasant places to bring up families, and cities that will live on as spectacular and grand urban spaces.
These then are our promises to you:
•    Vastly enlarged education capacity so that every young person, especially those belonging to the Scheduled  Castes, Scheduled Tribes, OBCs, and disadvantaged sections of other communities, can follow their dream;
•    Financial aid to complete this education;
•    New and exciting job opportunities for all young men and women in the frontier areas of tomorrow;
•    Opportunities to work in public life – to improve our policies and institutions;
•    Security to pursue your lives and ambitions;
•    A green and clean India;
•    Prosperous villages, and beautiful welcoming cities for you and your families.  

― From a speech by Shri L.K. Advani at an interactive session with students Organised by INDIA BANAO! in New Delhi on October 20, 2008