New Delhi, Dec 25:
Senior BJP leader and highways minister Nitin Gadkari on Monday seemed to have kicked off a fresh controversy when he said that the “responsibility” of MPs and MLAs under-performing would lie at the door of the party chief. His comments, just two days after a row with his remark that “leadership should own up to defeat and failures” – which he subsequently sought to clarify – will be once again be read as an oblique criticism of the BJP leadership after recent reverses in state polls. Speaking at the annual IB endowment lecture, the minister said, “If I am the party president, and my MPs and MLAs are not doing well, then who is responsible? I am.” The comments will be seen as a suggestion that the buck stops with BJP president Amit Shah. The remarks gain significance in the backdrop of BJP’s loss in its bastions of Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh as well as in Rajasthan. Last week, Gadkari had said, “Success has many fathers but failure is an orphan, as when there is success, there will be a race to take credit but in case of failure, everybody will start pointing fingers at each other.” He had later denied any criticism of the leadership and said he was committed to backing PM Narendra Modi for a second term in office. The comments were interpreted as an attack on the Modi-Shah leadership though the minister later clarified that he was referring to leadership in the banking industry. He also took to Twitter to say, “In the last few days, I have noticed a sinister campaign by some opposition parties and a section of the media to twist my statements and use them out of context and draw politically motivated inferences to malign my party and me.” Addressing the IB officers, Gadkari said it was important to be polite in daily dealings and value human relationships. “You can’t win elections only because you speak well. You might be a ‘vidwan’ but people may not vote for you,” he said. “One who thinks he knows it all is mistaken. There is a difference between confidence and ego. You should be confident but keep ego away,” he added.
