The Gadkari Question

The Modi-Shah duo has tried to make him a persona non-grata in Maharashtra, but now, things are changing.

Nitin Gadkari.

(Photo: PTI)

Recently, at a summit of top leaders in Nagpur organised by a high-profile media house, Union Minister Nitin Gadkari was intensely questioned over his audacious revelation of being approached by the Opposition with the offer of becoming the prime minister.

Gadkari did not reveal who the Opposition leader was, which political party they belonged to, or whether they were from Maharashtra, but he apparently spurned the offer. With this revelation, he has thrown his hat in the ring, silently and shrewdly.

This is not the first time he has made a move since Modi 3.0 began. A few weeks ago, he wrote a letter to Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, endorsing the demand of a trade union in the insurance sector to withdraw GST on premiums paid by people while renewing or taking a life and/or medical insurance policies.

Gadkari is no ordinary leader. He was, after all, the president of BJP 12 years ago when Narendra Modi was yet to emerge on the national scene. In the BJP's scheme of things, he is seen by some as a leader of the Vajpayee mould.

Gadkari disclosing the offer for the first time at Nagpur (which houses the RSS headquarters) last month is all the more significant. At one time, Gadkari’s rise in the organisation was attributed to his proximity to the Sangh. It was the Nagpur connection that kept Gadkari afloat when the powerful Pramod Mahajan-Gopinath Munde duo ran affairs in the Maharashtra BJP.

The Modi-Shah duo has tried to make Gadkari a persona non-grata in the Maharashtra BJP for the past ten years, but now, things are changing.

For the past three months, Modi has been struggling to find a BJP chief to replace Nadda, whose term has long expired. This is being seen in political circles as indicative of the tension between the PM and Nagpur.

Gadkari has cleverly made the revelation at a time when Modi’s leadership abilities are at an all-time low since becoming the prime minister in May 2014, with Opposition leaders insisting that he will not be able to complete his third term. The BJP does not look like it is retaining power in Haryana or scoring creditably in Jammu and Kashmir either.

On the other hand, being the Man Friday of the prime minister, Shah sees himself as Modi's successor. A section of the BJP, however, insists that Shah’s standing in the party is because of Modi and if he is not on the scene, the former will automatically become a dud.

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath sees himself on the top in the silent race for leadership. He, after all, became the chief minister due to the strong backing of Nagpur, even though Modi had someone else in mind.

Union Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan is a newcomer to the political scene in New Delhi. In his new role, he is posing as a strong loyalist of the prime minister. His rationale appears to be that he wants to become a consensus candidate if there is no unanimity over Shah or Yogi.

Everyone who is anyone in the BJP knows that neither Gadkari nor Chouhan is in the good books of the prime minister and that in the past, he has used every opportunity to marginalise them.

Modi is belatedly realising that all is not well after becoming the prime minister for the third time, with the BJP missing the majority mark and Chandrababu Naidu’s TDP and Nitish Kumar’s JD-U providing the key crutches.

Buddha once said that everything is transient and nothing is permanent. Gadkari is telling Modi that the same applies to his prime ministership.

Only time will tell whether Gadkari becomes the ‘Jagjivan Ram’ of the BJP and stages a surprise rebellion like the one by the Congress veteran when Indira Gandhi was at the helm. So far, Gadkari has shown neither courage nor a rebellious streak. But the ‘Who After Modi’ game has begun within the beleaguered BJP.

(Sunil Gatade is a former Associate Editor of the Press Trust of India. Venkatesh Kesari is an independent journalist. This is an opinion article and the views expressed are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for them.)