Mumbai: Days after being removed from the parliamentary board of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), union minister Nitin Gadkari said that it is wrong to use someone and throw them away after the need is over. If you have held someone’s hand and if he is your friend then never let him go, Gadkari said, adding that “one should not follow the policy of worshipping the rising sun”.
He also noted that the former Congress minister Dr Shrikant Jichkar once offered him to join Congress and also said that the BJP has no future but he chose to stay in BJP. The senior BJP leader made the statement at YPO Vidarbha, Chapter launch event on Saturday evening in Nagpur.
“The human relationship is the biggest strength of a business, social service and politics. Thus never indulge in the policy of use and throw. When you have held someone’s hand, hold it tight if he is your friend irrespective of whether the situation is good or bad,” said the union minister, who held the party’s national president position between 2009 and 2013.
“Do not look to worship only the rising sun and change according to the circumstances,” he added.
In a rejig of the party’s parliamentary board, the central BJP leadership on August 17 dropped Gadkari and Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan from it. On the other hand, Fadnavis was brought on board the party’s central election committee along with a few other leaders. Both these panels are crucial to the party’s organisational set-up.
Quoting a line from the biography of former US president Richard Nixon, the 65-year-old leader said, “A man is not finished when he is defeated but is finished when he quits. So fight with positivity. Also, there is a difference between ego and self-confidence. One should be self-confident and positive but not be an egoist.”
Madhav Bhandari, vice president of the state BJP unit, said that there is no reason to connect his remarks with the parliamentary board decision of the party. “Gadkari ji has spoken about human relationships, which is a fact and applicable to all. There is no reason to see a connection between his statement and the party’s decision about the parliamentary board,” Bhandari said.
A few days ago Gadkari issued a warning to a section of mainstream media, social media and some people for running a “fabricated campaign by concocting his statement for political mileage”.
“Although I’ve never been disturbed by such malicious agendas of fringe elements, all concerned are hereby warned that If such mischief continues, I will not hesitate to take them to the law in the larger interest of our Government, Party and millions of our hardworking karyakartas,” he said in a series of tweets on August 25.
