Transport and highways minister Nitin Gadkari on Friday invoked veteran L.K. Advani and cautioned BJP leaders against repeating the mistakes committed by the Congress, appearing to send a message to the top leadership of his party in Delhi.
“Advani ji used to say that we are a party with a difference. We have to understand how different we are from other parties,” Gadkari said at a Goa BJP state executive meeting in Panaji on Friday.
“If we continue doing what the Congress used to do, there is no use of their exit and our entry,” he said in the presence of Goa chief minister Pramod Sawant and other top BJP leaders of the state.
The comments from Gadkari, known for taking oblique swipes at the party’s top leadership, came in the backdrop of the BJP’s reduced strength in the Lok Sabha and murmurs of discontent within the party.
The Narendra Modi-Amit Shah duo are widely accused of handling the government and the party in an autocratic manner, reminiscent of the Congress’s heydays under former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. Post-election, many BJP leaders have privately blamed the “unilateral” choice of candidates and the “arrogance-filled” “chaar sau paar” slogan for the party’s tally dipping below the majority mark.
In his post-election comments, RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat publicly disapproved of the “ahankar” (arrogance) of the “sevak”, which was seen as a dig at Modi who likes to call himself “Pradhan Sevak” of the country.
In his speech, Gadkari, the BJP strongman from Nagpur, said the “performance audit” of elected representatives was more important than the “financial audit”.
While cautioning party leaders and cadres against committing the same mistakes as the Congress, he stressed that politics should be an “instrument for bringing social and economic reforms”.
Gadkari said Bhutan’s emphasis on “domestic happy human index” was a better measure of a government’s performance compared with GDP growth. This too appeared to be an indirect critique of the Modi government, constantly boasting about India becoming the fifth-largest economy and promising to make it the third in the world.
“You can donate eyes but you can’t donate vision,” Gadkari said, adding cryptically that there was a dearth of “honest and committed leaders with vision”.
Gadkari also slammed “caste politics” dominating his home state Maharashtra. “I have told people that I will not indulge in caste-based politics. Those who will speak about caste will get a strong kick,” he said, underlining how 40 per cent of his electorate in Nagpur are Muslims and Dalits but he still wins based on his performance.
