It was the drop-cloth behind the stage set for new Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) President Nitin Gadkari’s first press conference that said it all. It did not rake up the Ram Mandir issue. Instead, what it bore was a quote from Deen Dayal Upadhyaya: “the uplift of the last poor person is our goal”. This, from a party whose slogan at one point was ‘India Shining’.
Gadkari, the youngest president of the BJP and the first from Maharashtra, was at great pains to emphasise that all he wanted to do as the party president was be himself. So, thoughout his hour-long press conference, he used management jargon (“I am a student of management, and therefore, I would say that while financial audits are not that necessary, performance audits are”); homilies from the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh; and large doses of modesty and humility to make his point.
However, he made it clear that ending indiscipline and the growing culture of sycophancy in the BJP would be his priority.
Gadkari also avoided being drawn into a discussion on the core beliefs of the BJP-the Ram Janmabhoomi movement, scrapping of Article 370 of the Constitution and the Uniform Civil Code. “My colleagues are free to differ with me, but there should be discipline and mutual trust between us,” he said. “Anyone who differs with me should come and within party forums discuss the matter. Either you convince me or be convinced by me,” he said.
Scpetical reporters asked how performance was going to be rewarded when leaders responsible for nothing but electoral loss of the BJP had been elevated, including Rajnath Singh and Gadkari himself? His answer was that all electoral victory or defeat was collective responsibility.
