Nitin Gadkari’s recent remarks indicate a slight tilt in scales as a section of BJP now feels emboldened to question the Modi-Shah leadership.
New Delhi: Union Minister and senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Nitin Gadkari’s string of recent vexed statements show Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP president Amit Shah’s worries are multiplying as the Lok Sabha polls draw closer — not just on the external front but internally as well.
In the last week, Gadkari, who holds plum portfolios in the Modi government like the Transport and Highways Ministry, among others, has made cloaked yet revealing taunts at the BJP’s top leadership.
BJP sources said these indicate a slight tilt in scales, where, unlike in the run-up to 2014 or even until a year ago, a section of the party feels that a challenge can be mounted to the Modi-Shah leadership.
The party recently lost three key states in the Hindi heartland to the Congress. It also performed poorly in bypolls earlier, particularly in Uttar Pradesh. The Modi government has also spent a significant time firefighting on several fronts recently. Even its allies, like the Shiv Sena, have flexed muscles.
Put together, all these have taken some of the sheen off the Modi-Shah leadership.
What Gadkari said
On Monday, while delivering the annual endowment lecture to the Intelligence Bureau (IB), Gadkari said, “If I am the party president and my MPs and MLAs are not doing well, then who is responsible? I am.”
The remark, seemingly directed at Shah, came barely days after the minister’s comment that “leadership should own up to defeat and failures”, which he later sought to clarify as having been “twisted”.
At the IB event, Gadkari also said he liked the speeches of India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru — a jarring comment by a senior leader of a party that is trying to put the Nehru-Gandhi legacy in the backseat and put forth its own ‘heroes’.
At a time when the party is being accused of fostering a culture of intolerance in the country, Gadkari said “tolerance is the biggest asset of the Indian system”.
“You can’t win elections only because you speak well. You might be a vidwan (learned) but people may not vote for you,” said Gadkari.
He added, “One who thinks he knows everything is mistaken — people should refrain from artificial marketing.”
Last week too, the minister said that some people in the party should talk less.
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The implication
Known to be close to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), Gadkari was BJP chief from 2009 to 2013, the party’s youngest ever president. However, he was forced to resign when charges of financial irregularities emerged against him and daggers were drawn out by several quarters of the party.
An astute politician, with an image of being a pragmatic leader, many in the party believe Gadkari’s statements are not a result of mere arbitrariness but part of a thought-out paradigm. More so, given the fact that the minister has repeatedly made controversial remarks in the last week, even after issuing clarifications.
“With electoral losses and several other damaging incidents, a section in the BJP believes the Modi-Shah leadership can be questioned. Even allies have started throwing their weight around, which has further emboldened this section,” said a highly placed source in the party who did not wish to be identified.
“Gadkari’s remarks are very much part of this. He is too experienced to make random statements,” added the source.
Modi still remains the most popular and powerful face of the BJP and the modus operandi of his detractors in the party may not be about dislodging him, but drawing attention to his weakened leadership.
Some in the party believe the push to Gadkari isn’t just internal, but also external.
“There is also a section outside the party which does not want to see Modi as prime minister again, and even they are propping up Gadkari. For them, this helps show there is even internal opposition to Modi-Shah,” said another leader on condition of anonymity.
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The Gadkari-Modi history
Gadkari and Modi have had a chequered relationship and do not come without their share of troubled history.
In 2012, for instance, Modi, then Gujarat chief minister, was at loggerheads with then party president Gadkari over his bete noire Sanjay Joshi. Modi wanted Joshi to be removed from the party’s powerful national executive.
Modi threatened to stay away from the May 2012 national executive meet, and agreed to attend it only after Gadkari bowed to his wishes and asked Joshi to step down.
In the previous national executive meet in New Delhi in September 2011, Modi had snubbed the party’s top leadership by not attending.
Given the baggage of the past, Gadkari’s own ambitions as well as recent factors dampening the unassailable image of the Modi-Shah leadership, the minister’s slew of recent remarks reveal more than they actually state.
All boils down to numbers if BJP Allies like akali, sena and JDU come out strong n BJP have anything less than 220 seats Gadkari will be sworn in Modi Shah end of story. Gadkari purti scam given prominence in media on behest of Jaitley / Modi. Revenge time for Gadkari
Earlier the best. Modi’exit may save BJP. He is lowest among intelligents in BJP.
Is it the actual state or is it congi deep state at work. Pressitudes paying back for payments past!!! Only time will tell…
Collegial, not collegiate.
This is the beginning of a split in the BJP. Its (M-S) faction or “Gujarat faction” has fully encouraged the VHP, Bajrang Dal and other more “energetic” sections of Hindutva in recent past, so it will be fully supported by them in future. This faction will quickly move to the margins where it has always belonged despite support from some important elected members like M-S, Jaitley, Ravi Shankar Prasad etc. The other faction, dominated by Rajnath Singh and others will slowly occupy the centre stage BJP status — once occupied by ABV, Pramod Mahajan etc. Mr Gadkari, from present indications, will be on this side of the fence.
And where will the RSS be? If Mr Mohan Bhagwat was serious about his inclusive-Muslims speech, and if that was a precursor of the things to come, then obviously the “energetic” Hindutva M-S or Gujarat faction will be left alone to stew in its own juices. Which is bitter bile. Sweet God will not support bitter bile.
In Britain, this would be considered normal. The rivalry between Tony Blair and Gordon Brown was legendary. Senior ministers jostling for power and influence, sometimes moving a motion of no confidence against the PM, without their loyalty to the party being questioned. Standards of accountability are higher, especially after electoral reverses. Pandit Nehru had tried to move India’s fledgling parliamentary democracy along this more collegiate path. His imperious daughter put an end to that experiment.