18 THE WEEK^ • JULY 29, 2018
SPECIAL REPORT
NITIN GADKARINitin Gadkari, among the best-performing ministers, is obsessed with
work and has friends across the political divide. But, there was a time
when he wanted to quit politicsBY VIJAYA PUSHKARNA
N
itin Gadkari is a great
raconteur. He has two
favourite stories. Th ere is
the old one of how he be-
came the “fl yover man”
of Maharashtra; Shiv Sena founder
Bal Th ackeray apparently called him
Nitin “Roadkari”. Th e other is of how
he converted the BJP’s defeat in the
2017 Goa elections into a win, by
installing a government between
midnight and early morning.
But, there are many stories about
him that the Union minister skips, as
he passionately talks about the high-
way he is building or the waterways
that will reduce travelling cost to
about 10 paise a kilometre.
In 2014, when he was given the
road transport and highways port-
folio, projects worth 0 3 lakh crore
were stuck. Now, 99 per cent has
been resolved and about 60 per cent
has been completed. And, new road
construction contracts worth 0 5 lakh
crore have been awarded. When he
took charge, they were building 3km
of roads a day; now it is 27km.
“It is simply because of his obses-
sion and accessibility,” says an offi cer
in the transport ministry. “He talks
positive, and talks only solutions.”
Such is Gadkari’s image that
many—from corporates to party
leaders—knock on his door at the
RSS headquarters in Nagpur to getRoad warrior
their issues sorted. And, he is the go-
to man for the Union government. In
2015, when the party was yet to give
up on the Land Acquisition Bill, it got
Gadkari to make a last-ditch eff ort.
It also asked him to defend the party
after the communal riots in Muzaf-
farnagar in 2013.
Like Prime Minister Narendra
Modi and Union minister Arun
Jaitley, Gadkari also waxes eloquent.
But, nobody calls him pompous.
Even some of his cabinet colleagues
grudgingly say he is among the
best-performing ministers.
For Gadkari, everything is a pro-
ject, to be accomplished the way pro-
jects are—through brainstorming,
timelines and meetings. Recently,
one such meeting, a two-day event,
was held at Th e Leela Goa. It was a
state-wise review of about 827 na-
tional highway projects. And, at the
end, when he praised the Tamil Nadu
and Andhra Pradesh governments
for their work, his fairness won him
friends across the political divide.
One project engineer summed it
up: “Because the highways minister
was holding the meeting, 80 per cent
of the problems were solved even
before the meeting, by higher-ups.”
It is this passion for work that
catapulted him to where he is. Th ose
who work with Gadkari say he is
obsessed with what is on hand, andanyone involved in those projects
has unqualifi ed access to him. In
fact, the transport ministry is full of
stories of how he broke the cement
and construction cartels, resolved
disputes, and came up with innova-
tive funding ideas.
In Modi’s regime, most BJP leaders
prefer to keep mum. Gadkari is
among the few unafraid to speak
their mind, be it in favour of bring-
ing petroleum and realty under the
goods and services tax, or growing
corn to produce ethanol, which
would reduce import of petroleum.
Th ere are whispers that the RSS
may handpick him for the prime
minister’s job if the BJP were to form
government again with fewer num-
bers. “Th ere is no possibility,” he told
THE WEEK. “I don’t want to become
prime minister. I am not on the
waiting list. I don’t dream of it either.
I don’t have the stature.”
In 2009, when the BJP announced
that he would succeed Rajnath Singh
as party president, Gadkari was
hardly known outside Maharashtra.
But, he began revamping the party
and was soon primed for a second
term as president. However, that was
when the income tax department’s
investigations into his Purti Group
were seen as tarnishing the BJP’s
image. In an exclusive interview with
THE WEEK, he describes the Purti