Politics was earlier seen as a "dirty game", but the situation has "changed" after the BJP was voted to power at the Centre in 2014, Union Minister Mahesh Sharma said on Wednesday.
The minister of state for environment, forest and climate change (Independent Charge) made the remark during the inauguration of a three-day International Conference on Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Leadership (ICEIL 2018) in Noida.
Mr Sharma, 60, recalled that he took a plunge into politics after 25 years of experience in medicine, even though his family members had suggested against doing it saying that "it is a dirty game and nobody has a good opinion about it".
"Politics and leadership are words which were wrongly mixed, leadership does not mean politics. These words were being wrongly labelled and that is why the dirty game came about," Mr Sharma said according to news agency PTI.
"But things changed in 2014, the definitions changed. I am privileged to be working for the first time in Parliament under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, with four ministries," he said.
The conference is being organised by Amity University in association with the Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) on the theme "Technology, Innovation, and Value Creation" at the varsity's campus in Noida.
"Entrepreneurship, innovation and leadership are the elements to bring forth the transformational change and development in the world," Mr Sharma, who is also the minister for Culture and Civil Aviation, said.
The objective of the conference is to provide a platform for aspiring entrepreneurs, academia, industry, government and policy makers to come together and promote leadership, techno-preneurship and management practices in SMEs.
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