Gadkari is signalling that business as usual will not do

Nitin Gadkari’s late cut has the BJP top brass baffled amid growing fears about losing control over the organisation where dissent has been long suppressed

Every action has an equal and opposite reaction is a fundamental law of physics. It can also be applied to the arts and science of politics.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is realising it belatedly, after becoming prime minister for the third time with the Bharatiya Janata Party missing the majority mark and Chandrababu Naidu’s Telugu Desam Party and Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal (United) becoming the key crutches.

Take the latest instance of Union Minister and senior BJP leader Nitin Gadkari making a strong pitch for the removal of the GST on life insurance and medical policies for the greater good of the people, especially the elderly.

What has been unique in the demand is that it is virtually the first time a senior BJP leader or minister in the past 10 years played on the front foot, catching many unawares.

Gadkari’s late cut has the BJP top brass baffled amid growing fears about losing control over the organisation where dissent has been long suppressed. The internal dynamics in the BJP are changing with the failure of Modi to bring the majority for the third time and the Opposition turning buoyant.

Gadkari’s surprise move has come when the Union Budget has failed to cheer many sections of society, including the BJP’s traditional voters the middle class as well as the industry. The Opposition is seeing the Budget as a key instrument in fighting the BJP in the Assembly polls of Maharashtra, Haryana, Jharkhand, and Delhi.

Till the other day, the Cabinet and the entire BJP were content on calling themselves Narendra ‘Modi ke log’ and singing his paeans for the PM.

Gadkari’s letter to Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is well-timed. It has come amid growing speculation that Maharashtra Deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis could replace J P Nadda as the party chief. With the rise of Fadnavis in the politics of Maharashtra in the past decade, Gadkari has suffered an eclipse in the state BJP even though he is much senior to Fadnavis in politics and was the national party’s chief sometime back. The BJP has reduced Gadkari to just a leader from Nagpur.

The name of BJP National General Secretary Vinod Tawde, once close to Gadkari but is now considered an associate of Home Minister Amit Shah, is also being speculated for the top party post. Reports had it that the top post would be finalised only after consultations with the Rashtriya Swayansevak Sangh (RSS).

Hailing from Nagpur, Gadkari has often been known to be close to the RSS. He has suffered in the government as also in the party at the hands of Modi and Shah despite being called one of the most competent ministers in the Modi dispensation. Nagpur was not seen publicly backing Gadkari when plans became afoot to make him a member of the margdarshak mandal by removing him from the parliamentary board.

About two years back, Gadkari, along with then Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, was removed from the BJP’s Central Parliamentary Board, in what was said to be an exercise to bring some other sections in the powerful body.

There was much speculation ahead of the Lok Sabha polls that Gadkari would be denied renomination this time when his name did not figure in the first list of BJP candidates. At that time, former Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray sought to fish in troubled BJP waters by publicly declaring that the opposition I.N.D.I.A. bloc was ready to make Gadkari its candidate from Nagpur if he walked out.

The irony is that Chouhan, who was once hailed as a prime ministerial probable by party veteran L K Advani is also a member of the Modi 3.0 dispensation. With the BJP securing all 29 Lok Sabha seats from Madhya Pradesh, Chouhan has shown that he is no pushover. He has now been made agriculture minister and no stone is left unturned to project that he calls shots on his home turf.

Despite dissidence, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath is showing that he is the boss of Uttar Pradesh, and it would be better if the BJP high command keeps its distance.

These developments within the BJP would be new for the Modi-Shah duo who have had absolute control over the running of the party.

Gadkari is seen as one of the most outspoken ministers in the Modi dispensation but is neither regarded as a fighter, nor a strategist. BJP observers will recall that Modi’s rise to the national scene occurred when Gadkari was the party chief. It was a golden opportunity for Gadkari to make a mark as he had the unqualified backing of the RSS whose word mattered more in the BJP’s affairs then.

Antagonising Gadkari when Assembly polls in Maharashtra are around the corner is fraught with danger. Already, the Opposition, especially the Congress has made inroads in the Vidarbha region, the home turf of Gadkari and Fadnavis, and is raring for a fight to gain power in the premier state.

The BJP is a party with a difference in that there has never been a rebellion at the national level. Gadkari is signalling that business as usual will not do.

(Sunil Gatade and Venkatesh Kesari are senior journalists.)

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.