 "In Nagpur, Nitin Gadkari plots his return")
On the morning of the polls, Nitin Gadkari put on a blue shirt paired with a Nehru jacket of a darker hue, met Sir James David Bevan, the British High Commissioner, at 8 am and cast his vote soon after.
He then spent his day traversing the streets of the town that has only once elected a BJP candidate as its representative in Parliament. Yet, Nagpur is Gadkari's city; its residents have witnessed his rise from a small-time businessman astride a wheezing scooter to the president of the BJP.
After 35 years in politics, Nitin Gadkari, former president of the BJP, is fighting his first Lok Sabha elections in a contest that could determine his political future. Victory means a path back to the upper echelons of the BJP and possibly the national government; defeat could condemn him to five years in political wilderness.
As a quintessential man of the party, he began as a member of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, a RSS- inspired student organisation, and worked his way up to post of minister of public works in the Maharashtra Cabinet, where he won acclaim for commissioning several important infrastructure projects - most notably the Mumbai-Pune expressway.
In September 2012, anti-corruption activist Anjali Damania claimed Gadkari had dissuaded her from exposing Maharashtra's multi-crore irrigation scam in which hundreds of crores of rupees intended for irrigation works were allegedly siphoned by corrupt bureaucrats, politicians and contractors.
Soon after, the Income Tax department initiated inquiries into reports that Gadkari's Purti Power and Sugar Ltd used shell companies to evade taxes and hide investments from an infrastructure company that won contracts during Gadkari's tenure as state minister for public works.
The charges were never proved, but Gadkari resigned as party president; soon after, Narendra Modi was declared the BJP's prime ministerial candidate.
Now, at 56, Gadkari is plotting his return. Vilas Muttemvar, the four-time incumbent from the Congress, has vowed to defeat him by a large margin; Damania, his nemesis, is standing against him from the Aam Aadmi Party and brandishes allegedly incriminating documents at her press conferences.
"I'm innocent," he said in an interview, "all the allegations are false and will not be an issue in this election."
For weeks preceding this election, Gadkari campaigned from an open-top jeep, shook hands, addressed gatherings and ensured regular photo-opportunities for the crowd gathered in compound of his multi-storey home in the old city. He released his own manifesto weeks before his party did - promising 50,000 new jobs in the city, improved urban infrastructure and statehood for Vidarbha as an extension of the BJP's "smaller states policy".
The one thing he has avoided is a Modi rally in his town. Given the larger Muslim, Dalit and Other Backward Classes (OBC) population, a "Modi wave", if it exists, is likely to hinder rather than help Gadkari's campaign.
He downplays the political frisson surrounding his decision to enter the electoral fray, "If I hadn't fought this election, the media would say I run away from the elections. Now that I am fighting, the media asks me why I am fighting."
Damania shows me a copy of what she alleges are Gadkari's wife's bank statements with credits notated "subsidy from sugar cane" marked out with a fluorescent highlighter. She claims to have a list of businesses owned by Muttemvar's sons, including a renewable energy firm.
"Muttemvar was the minister of renewable energy," she says, darkly. "They have many contracts." She has audio recordings of what she says are politicians offering to pay her off to stop her investigations into Maharashtra's irrigation scam. This correspondent was unable to verify the authenticity of any of these allegations or establish if they constituted illegal acts.
Instead, the local press has focused on how the Raigad district administration accused her of buying agricultural land under false pretenses and has confiscated 49 acres. Damania says all her land transactions are above board and she is being persecuted for exposing corrupt officials. The matter is before a revenue tribunal.
"I have explained this to the media, no one prints this," she said, struggling for composure as her eyes welled up with tears, "It is irritating, it's really irritating."
Damania, a pathologist by profession, exudes an air of energetic efficiency accentuated by her patterned blue salwar kameez and grey and neon joggers. Her entry into politics sounds like a religious revelation.
In August 2011, she was watching television at her diagnostic clinic in Santa Cruz, Mumbai, and saw thousands gather in New Delhi to protest against corrupt governance. "I saw Annaji being arrested and he was taken to Tihar jail. At that moment, something from within told me that I should go there and be a part of that movement."
Damania owned 30 acres in Raigad that was to be acquired for a dam project. She filed a Right to Information request and found irregularities in the cost, scope and clearances granted to the project. She filed similar requests across the state and stumbled upon, what some believe, is an enormous scam in which money intended for irrigation project was siphoned off by contractors, bureaucrats and politicians.
In 2012, she said she met Gadkari, a claim he has categorically denied, and asked him to investigate a particular individual implicated in the scam. "He said, 'they do our work we do their work so how can we investigate?' I was really furious," she said. "The battle is now against Gadkari because he is a poster boy of corruption according to us."
It is hard not be moved by Damania's campaign, particularly her focused anger against what she perceives to be "the system" of patronage that Gadkari and Muttemvar represents. In Damania's world, taxes are deducted at source, payments are made by cheque, and society is united across caste, creed and religion in a battle against graft.
Yet, for many, Gadkari's entrepreneurial dynamism with its wheeler-dealers and borderline legality and Muttemvar's Congress big-tent social contract, and the patronage structures it spawns, represent a legitimate coexistence of politics and business.
"Muttemvarji is like God to us," said Dinesh Tarale, a Nagpur Congressman who has worked with Muttemvar for 30 years, "Nitin Gadkari is a Maharashtra Brahmin. That doesn't work in Nagpur," Tarale said. "There is a large OBC, Dalit and Muslim population."
In 2009, the Bahujan Samaj Party fielded a strong OBC candidate who cut into Muttemvar's vote share and reduced his winning margin to 24,399 votes. Gadkari's candidature, Tarale said, would actually help the Congress. "A strong BJP candidate will unite the Congress vote base."
"There are a lot of Muslims and Dalits in Nagpur," Gadkari conceded, when asked why the Congress had controlled the seat for so long. "But both communities will vote for me."
Gadkari's supporters hope that his personal popularity in Nagpur will reassure Dalits and Muslims frightened by the prospect of a BJP-led central government. They expect their candidate to eke out enough votes from these communities to ensure victory. In an election where BJP leaders are hoping a "Modi wave" will overwhelm the imperatives of local politics, Gadkari is hoping for the exact opposite.
PATH TO PARLIAMENT
1976: Joins the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP); takes active part in university elections
1979: Made ABVP secretary of Vidarbha region
1985: Becomes secretary of BJP Nagpur city unit 1990, 1996, 2002 & 2008: Elected as MLA (unopposed in 2002)
1995-99: Enters Maharashtra Cabinet as public works minister, at 38
1999: Becomes Leader of Opposition in Maharashtra Legislative Council
2004: President of BJP Maharashtra unit
2009: Becomes BJP president
2013: Controversies over investments end stint as party chief
2014: Contests Lok Sabha elections for the first time, from the RSS stronghold of Nagpur
ACHIEVEMENTS
* As Public Works Minister of Maharashtra: Mega projects, such as the Mumbai-Pune Expressway or the network of 55 flyover bridges in Mumbai, undertaken at below estimated expenditure
* Showed strong support for privatisation
* Managed to convince the state to allocate Rs 700 crore for rural connectivity (98% of state's population achieved all-weather road connectivity within four years)
He then spent his day traversing the streets of the town that has only once elected a BJP candidate as its representative in Parliament. Yet, Nagpur is Gadkari's city; its residents have witnessed his rise from a small-time businessman astride a wheezing scooter to the president of the BJP.
After 35 years in politics, Nitin Gadkari, former president of the BJP, is fighting his first Lok Sabha elections in a contest that could determine his political future. Victory means a path back to the upper echelons of the BJP and possibly the national government; defeat could condemn him to five years in political wilderness.
Also Read
In 2012, Gadkari's businesses were flourishing and he was well set for an unprecedented second term as party president, a post that meant he was in the reckoning for the BJP's prime ministerial candidature in an election stacked against the incumbent Congress.
As a quintessential man of the party, he began as a member of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, a RSS- inspired student organisation, and worked his way up to post of minister of public works in the Maharashtra Cabinet, where he won acclaim for commissioning several important infrastructure projects - most notably the Mumbai-Pune expressway.
In September 2012, anti-corruption activist Anjali Damania claimed Gadkari had dissuaded her from exposing Maharashtra's multi-crore irrigation scam in which hundreds of crores of rupees intended for irrigation works were allegedly siphoned by corrupt bureaucrats, politicians and contractors.
Soon after, the Income Tax department initiated inquiries into reports that Gadkari's Purti Power and Sugar Ltd used shell companies to evade taxes and hide investments from an infrastructure company that won contracts during Gadkari's tenure as state minister for public works.
The charges were never proved, but Gadkari resigned as party president; soon after, Narendra Modi was declared the BJP's prime ministerial candidate.
Now, at 56, Gadkari is plotting his return. Vilas Muttemvar, the four-time incumbent from the Congress, has vowed to defeat him by a large margin; Damania, his nemesis, is standing against him from the Aam Aadmi Party and brandishes allegedly incriminating documents at her press conferences.
"I'm innocent," he said in an interview, "all the allegations are false and will not be an issue in this election."
For weeks preceding this election, Gadkari campaigned from an open-top jeep, shook hands, addressed gatherings and ensured regular photo-opportunities for the crowd gathered in compound of his multi-storey home in the old city. He released his own manifesto weeks before his party did - promising 50,000 new jobs in the city, improved urban infrastructure and statehood for Vidarbha as an extension of the BJP's "smaller states policy".
The one thing he has avoided is a Modi rally in his town. Given the larger Muslim, Dalit and Other Backward Classes (OBC) population, a "Modi wave", if it exists, is likely to hinder rather than help Gadkari's campaign.
He downplays the political frisson surrounding his decision to enter the electoral fray, "If I hadn't fought this election, the media would say I run away from the elections. Now that I am fighting, the media asks me why I am fighting."
Damania shows me a copy of what she alleges are Gadkari's wife's bank statements with credits notated "subsidy from sugar cane" marked out with a fluorescent highlighter. She claims to have a list of businesses owned by Muttemvar's sons, including a renewable energy firm.
"Muttemvar was the minister of renewable energy," she says, darkly. "They have many contracts." She has audio recordings of what she says are politicians offering to pay her off to stop her investigations into Maharashtra's irrigation scam. This correspondent was unable to verify the authenticity of any of these allegations or establish if they constituted illegal acts.
Instead, the local press has focused on how the Raigad district administration accused her of buying agricultural land under false pretenses and has confiscated 49 acres. Damania says all her land transactions are above board and she is being persecuted for exposing corrupt officials. The matter is before a revenue tribunal.
"I have explained this to the media, no one prints this," she said, struggling for composure as her eyes welled up with tears, "It is irritating, it's really irritating."
Damania, a pathologist by profession, exudes an air of energetic efficiency accentuated by her patterned blue salwar kameez and grey and neon joggers. Her entry into politics sounds like a religious revelation.
In August 2011, she was watching television at her diagnostic clinic in Santa Cruz, Mumbai, and saw thousands gather in New Delhi to protest against corrupt governance. "I saw Annaji being arrested and he was taken to Tihar jail. At that moment, something from within told me that I should go there and be a part of that movement."
Damania owned 30 acres in Raigad that was to be acquired for a dam project. She filed a Right to Information request and found irregularities in the cost, scope and clearances granted to the project. She filed similar requests across the state and stumbled upon, what some believe, is an enormous scam in which money intended for irrigation project was siphoned off by contractors, bureaucrats and politicians.
In 2012, she said she met Gadkari, a claim he has categorically denied, and asked him to investigate a particular individual implicated in the scam. "He said, 'they do our work we do their work so how can we investigate?' I was really furious," she said. "The battle is now against Gadkari because he is a poster boy of corruption according to us."
It is hard not be moved by Damania's campaign, particularly her focused anger against what she perceives to be "the system" of patronage that Gadkari and Muttemvar represents. In Damania's world, taxes are deducted at source, payments are made by cheque, and society is united across caste, creed and religion in a battle against graft.
Yet, for many, Gadkari's entrepreneurial dynamism with its wheeler-dealers and borderline legality and Muttemvar's Congress big-tent social contract, and the patronage structures it spawns, represent a legitimate coexistence of politics and business.
"Muttemvarji is like God to us," said Dinesh Tarale, a Nagpur Congressman who has worked with Muttemvar for 30 years, "Nitin Gadkari is a Maharashtra Brahmin. That doesn't work in Nagpur," Tarale said. "There is a large OBC, Dalit and Muslim population."
In 2009, the Bahujan Samaj Party fielded a strong OBC candidate who cut into Muttemvar's vote share and reduced his winning margin to 24,399 votes. Gadkari's candidature, Tarale said, would actually help the Congress. "A strong BJP candidate will unite the Congress vote base."
"There are a lot of Muslims and Dalits in Nagpur," Gadkari conceded, when asked why the Congress had controlled the seat for so long. "But both communities will vote for me."
Gadkari's supporters hope that his personal popularity in Nagpur will reassure Dalits and Muslims frightened by the prospect of a BJP-led central government. They expect their candidate to eke out enough votes from these communities to ensure victory. In an election where BJP leaders are hoping a "Modi wave" will overwhelm the imperatives of local politics, Gadkari is hoping for the exact opposite.
PATH TO PARLIAMENT
1976: Joins the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP); takes active part in university elections
1979: Made ABVP secretary of Vidarbha region
1985: Becomes secretary of BJP Nagpur city unit 1990, 1996, 2002 & 2008: Elected as MLA (unopposed in 2002)
1995-99: Enters Maharashtra Cabinet as public works minister, at 38
1999: Becomes Leader of Opposition in Maharashtra Legislative Council
2004: President of BJP Maharashtra unit
2009: Becomes BJP president
2013: Controversies over investments end stint as party chief
2014: Contests Lok Sabha elections for the first time, from the RSS stronghold of Nagpur
ACHIEVEMENTS
* As Public Works Minister of Maharashtra: Mega projects, such as the Mumbai-Pune Expressway or the network of 55 flyover bridges in Mumbai, undertaken at below estimated expenditure
* Showed strong support for privatisation
* Managed to convince the state to allocate Rs 700 crore for rural connectivity (98% of state's population achieved all-weather road connectivity within four years)