On the day Nitin Gadkari completes his first three-year term as the Bharatiya Janata Party president and must be sitting in front of the TV with clasped hands, his eyes scanning the ticker for the latest update on election results in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh, his own future reads like a gloomy weather report on a cloudy day. While the scorecard records one-love each for the BJP and Congress in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh, it is a clear two hates for Gadkari.
The Nagpur politician, behind whom the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh threw in its weight to save him in the face of corruption charges, will continue to be in the party chief’s position till January 2013 when a final decision is taken on giving him a second term. However, his self-styled poll-winning capacities and self-aggrandised claims of being the party’s lucky mascot have come a cropper with the results in these states.
In and out of the Purti-Gurumurthy episode (RSS ideologue Gurumurthy’s report bailed Gadkari out when The Times of India brought allegations of money-laundering against the party chief in his family-owned Purti Group), the former Maharashtra PWD minister embarked on a campaign trail — his name appeared ahead of party stalwart LK Advani in the list of star campaigners in Gujarat. However, Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi put his foot down on Gadkari’s grandiose plans at the hustings, claiming that the party president’s presence might not go well with his own claims of having provided the people with a corruption-free government in the state. Gadkari had just a token presence among the Marathi-speaking people in Surat district, on the Gujarat-Maharashtra border.
When the party chief’s campaign itinerary was being charted for Himachal, party veteran and former chief minister Shanta Kumar sent panic messages to the BJP central leadership, contending that Gadkari’s presence in the hill state would be harmful for the Prem Kumar Dhumal-led state government, which was already embroiled in several corruption cases. Election in the state were fought mainly on corruption-related issues and ironically the Congress’s face and former chief minister Virbhadra Singh also faced corruption charges.
In fact, he had to resign from the union council of ministers about six months ago when a local court framed graft charges against him.
Shanta Kumar’s appeals, however, were drowned in the clamour of support for an embattled party chief.
Gadkari had recently been in the firing line from his own party members over corruption charges. He was accused by activist-turned-politician Arvind Kejriwal of being illegally favoured by the Maharashtra government in allocation of farm land. Party leaders like Ram Jethmalani, Shatrughan Sinha and Yashwant Sinha openly attacked Gadkari and demanded his resignation. In a bid to quell the uprising, the party suspended Jethmalani for launching scathing attack on Gadkari.
Today’s results show how valid Kumar’s fears were and how sound Modi’s discretion. Perhaps, the BJP leadership needs to rethink its adamancy to give Gadkari a second term as the party chief.
