New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday listed good conduct, thinking and behaviour as essential virtues of a good parliamentarian.

Modi listed dos and don’ts for his fellow Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) lawmakers while inaugurating two-day workshop organised by the party for nearly 180 first time members of parliament at Surajkund on Delhi-Haryana border.

Among the first time MPs were 162 members of the Lok Sabha and 18 of the Rajya Sabha. Incidentally, Modi himself is a first time MP and made no bones of it while admitting that he was still learning.

“I have also won for the first time... I am a new MP... I have to learn from my seniors,” Modi said while asking the new BJP MPs to come to him or his home minister Rajnath Singh if they needed any help. Singh continues to function as the BJP president since the party is yet to name his successor.

The workshop has been organised just days before the budget session of the parliament starts from July 7. Senior BJP leaders like Rajnath Singh, M. Venkaiah Naidu, Arun Jaitley and Sushma Swaraj are slated to train the first timers. The workshop will end later on Sunday with speech of the veteran leader Lal Krishna Advani.

According to former BJP president M. Venkaiah Naidu, who is the parliamentary affairs minister in the Modi government, the workshop was organised to train the first time MPs about parliamentary procedures and make them aware of BJP’s ideology.

“The prime minister guided the MPs on how to maintain standards in public life, how to take the message of good governance to the people, the message of BJP and in turn of Modi to people,” Naidu said.

The dos and don’ts listed by Modi included desisting from indulging in corruption and nepotism, come to parliament well prepared for debates and raise important issues during Zero Hour, not to talk to media out of turn, use social media to reach out to the people and convey achievements of the party and government.

Modi’s message was simple. “If we can do it, just like we made the centre nearly Congress-mukt (free), the same thing has to be repeated whenever assembly elections are taking place,” Modi said, hinting at upcoming assembly polls in Maharashtra, Haryana, Delhi, Jammu and Kashmir and Jharkhand towards this year end. BJP is not in power in any of these states.

According to sources, Modi asked the first time MPs to draw a roadmap for their constituencies for the next six months and use the MP Local Area Development Fund judiciously for public benefit.

BJP wants the new MPs to not only come to parliament properly prepared but attend the session regularly and behave properly. Modi, sources said, underlined the importance of following instructions of the chair and party seniors and treat parliament’s rule book as a holy book and never step out of it.

“Our transition from opposition to treasury is not limited to moving a few feet to the other side. This is a significant transition and we must try to appreciate the meaning of this,” Modi said.