Can BJP afford to lose Gadkari?
10 Nov 2012 7:34 AM IST
What has been most amusing during this entire season of fall and fall of Congress in public perception is how the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has remained a mute spectator, gaining nothing out of the issue. In fact, they have been also busy digging their own grave! Every time a state-level leader with a mass following becomes powerful in the BJP and acquires a stature, the big guys in Delhi seem to be too intent to kill that rise. Kalyan Singh, the low-caste leader who actually helped the BJP win a majority – the first and only time – in Uttar Pradesh, was thrown out. Uma Bharti, the lady who unseated and threw out the popular Digvijay Singh from power in Madhya Pradesh, was eventually thrown out. Vasundhara Raje, the lady who won them Rajasthan, has been humiliated. Yeddyurappa also has been effectively thrown out – conceded he has been corrupt, but he was the man who won Karnataka for the BJP. And the worst of all is the case of Narendra Modi, where it is the BJP leaders from Delhi who are spreading rumours that he is not a fit candidate to be the prime minister.
Strange indeed are the ways of the BJP, wherein Raman Singh and Shivraj Singh are the only two who seem to have understood the art of staying alive in the BJP! It seems that some Delhi-based BJP leaders, who apparently can win the maximum Rajya Sabha elections, are dictating terms in the party, which – unlike the Congress – seemed to be having inner party democracy in reality. For a fact, BJP is not a mother-and-son or father-and-daughter party, where anything and everything can be manipulated. However, the Delhi-based few apparently have become masters at manipulating the Delhi-based 24x7 media – which lives on hysteria and worse – and having their way.
So we have a situation where – too relieved at the chance of forgetting Vadra – not a single journalist actually went through the track record of Gadkari as a minister in the Shiv Sena-BJP government of 1995 to 1999, but filed stories based on half-baked leaks given by not just patriarchs of Congress, but worse, even the senior-most patriarchs from the BJP – who, instead of retiring, are still nurturing ambitions of becoming the PM.
The fact is that even if Nitin Gadkari made his drivers the directors of his companies, as long as it is legal, there is nothing that can be proven or held against him. It’s common business practice to have directors who can be trusted – and who will sign on the papers that you want them to! And it’s just a pity that Gadkari had only his drivers on whom he could place his maximum trust! Experts actually believe that the company law board will find nothing illegal in his companies or their board practices.
To give Gadkari his due, he is perhaps BJP’s only real visionary leader at this point of time. He is educated and is a hands-on entrepreneur whose entrepreneurial ventures have mostly focussed on rural employment. He has a child-like enthusiasm for things and has no qualms about being a businessman, and says openly that you can’t do social work on an empty stomach. Gadkari’s stint as the minister of PWD in Maharashtra saw sweeping changes from the top to bottom, and he created a record in terms of roads built during his tenure, including the Mumbai-Pune highway! Recent controversies apart, very personally speaking, I haven’t come across many political leaders with a social vision like his. He can rattle off the benefits of solar energy to sewage water power generation and can detail down their cost benefit analysis on his fingertips. He can talk of bio-fuel, its costs and its advantages like no politician can. He can explain the benefits of privatisation wherever required with as much ease as he can explain advantages of social entrepreneurship. He is that rarest of rare educated politician who can use terms like Internal Rate of Return (IRR) with full confidence while explaining cost-benefits of rural entrepreneurship ventures.
Anyone who has ever met him will say that he is amongst the most learned and able communicators in BJP and one with a genuine, social vision for India. He has been a grassroots leader and has not become the president of BJP for nothing. Sure, the BJP can eject Gadkari based on news reports that are Delhi-centric. But can BJP do without Gadkari in the long run if the Delhi cabal keeps throwing out state leaders one after the other? Perhaps no. At a time when the BJP seems poised to win the next elections – and there is a clear conspiracy to keep Modi out of the Centre – it’s Gadkari who might become their real saviour.
And why not? After all, who wouldn’t love a man who is enough well read to quote with a smile the profound words of John F Kennedy – ‘American roads are good not because America is rich; but America is rich because American roads are good.’ In such words rest not just his ability to speak but also his vision for tomorrow’s India. I doubt if BJP can afford to lose a leader like him to media-created hype.
Arindam Chaudhuri is a management guru and director of IIPM Think tank
Strange indeed are the ways of the BJP, wherein Raman Singh and Shivraj Singh are the only two who seem to have understood the art of staying alive in the BJP! It seems that some Delhi-based BJP leaders, who apparently can win the maximum Rajya Sabha elections, are dictating terms in the party, which – unlike the Congress – seemed to be having inner party democracy in reality. For a fact, BJP is not a mother-and-son or father-and-daughter party, where anything and everything can be manipulated. However, the Delhi-based few apparently have become masters at manipulating the Delhi-based 24x7 media – which lives on hysteria and worse – and having their way.
So we have a situation where – too relieved at the chance of forgetting Vadra – not a single journalist actually went through the track record of Gadkari as a minister in the Shiv Sena-BJP government of 1995 to 1999, but filed stories based on half-baked leaks given by not just patriarchs of Congress, but worse, even the senior-most patriarchs from the BJP – who, instead of retiring, are still nurturing ambitions of becoming the PM.
The fact is that even if Nitin Gadkari made his drivers the directors of his companies, as long as it is legal, there is nothing that can be proven or held against him. It’s common business practice to have directors who can be trusted – and who will sign on the papers that you want them to! And it’s just a pity that Gadkari had only his drivers on whom he could place his maximum trust! Experts actually believe that the company law board will find nothing illegal in his companies or their board practices.
To give Gadkari his due, he is perhaps BJP’s only real visionary leader at this point of time. He is educated and is a hands-on entrepreneur whose entrepreneurial ventures have mostly focussed on rural employment. He has a child-like enthusiasm for things and has no qualms about being a businessman, and says openly that you can’t do social work on an empty stomach. Gadkari’s stint as the minister of PWD in Maharashtra saw sweeping changes from the top to bottom, and he created a record in terms of roads built during his tenure, including the Mumbai-Pune highway! Recent controversies apart, very personally speaking, I haven’t come across many political leaders with a social vision like his. He can rattle off the benefits of solar energy to sewage water power generation and can detail down their cost benefit analysis on his fingertips. He can talk of bio-fuel, its costs and its advantages like no politician can. He can explain the benefits of privatisation wherever required with as much ease as he can explain advantages of social entrepreneurship. He is that rarest of rare educated politician who can use terms like Internal Rate of Return (IRR) with full confidence while explaining cost-benefits of rural entrepreneurship ventures.
Anyone who has ever met him will say that he is amongst the most learned and able communicators in BJP and one with a genuine, social vision for India. He has been a grassroots leader and has not become the president of BJP for nothing. Sure, the BJP can eject Gadkari based on news reports that are Delhi-centric. But can BJP do without Gadkari in the long run if the Delhi cabal keeps throwing out state leaders one after the other? Perhaps no. At a time when the BJP seems poised to win the next elections – and there is a clear conspiracy to keep Modi out of the Centre – it’s Gadkari who might become their real saviour.
And why not? After all, who wouldn’t love a man who is enough well read to quote with a smile the profound words of John F Kennedy – ‘American roads are good not because America is rich; but America is rich because American roads are good.’ In such words rest not just his ability to speak but also his vision for tomorrow’s India. I doubt if BJP can afford to lose a leader like him to media-created hype.
Arindam Chaudhuri is a management guru and director of IIPM Think tank
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