Don’t distort my remarks, I’m not upset with anyone, says Nitin Gadkari

​Aditi Tandon
New Delhi, September 6
Days after he was dropped from the BJP Parliamentary Board, ostensibly with the consent of the RSS, senior minister Nitin Gadkari on Tuesday went all out to argue that his remarks were being routinely distorted in the media and projected in a light in which these were not made.
Insisting that he is “very happy and not upset with anyone or anything”, Road Transport Minister Gadkari, speaking at the IAA Global Summit on Tuesday urged the media “not to create unnecessary controversy using his statements.”
“I speak the truth when you ask me. But why put words into my mouth? Please show what I say. Please appoint a research team to analyse my speeches. I will accept any punishment should the research reveal the tenor you give to my remarks,” Gadkari said in the wake of a controversy over his recent remarks that he felt like quitting current-day politics which has been reduced to power-play and was progressively being shorn of the sentiment of national service.
The remarks, made at an event in Maharashtra, had not gone down well with the BJP and the RSS, with party insiders noting that “no-one was above the rules of the organisation and its discipline.”
Gadkari’s public statement on Tuesday that his statements were distorted and old videos shown to project his remarks in an unintended light reveal his efforts at course-correction.
Gadkari has long been the opposition’s favoured BJP leader with the Congress routinely quoting his statements to target Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP.
“Showing my old video for sensation is wrong. One of my speeches made in Maharashtra was recently misquoted. The reporter said he did not even write what was carried. He said the news website trainees had made that mistake. Mistakes can be made but these need to be corrected as these have led to many misunderstandings,” Gadkari said in an effort to mend bridges with the party and the Sangh which were said to have been on the same page while dropping him from the BJP’s highest decision-making body recently.
Gadkari went on to add, “I have never said anything against anyone. You want to attack someone, attack them on your own if you have guts. Why do you shoot from my shoulder? I said recently that I entered politics after being inspired by the Jayaprakash Narayan agitation. I said that before freedom, politics was all about patriotism but after freedom politics is about national development.
“What I said was that politics had deteriorated to such a level that it had been reduced to a game of power and that there should be limits to this power play and national work should take precedence, not just power politics. In this context I said I sometimes feel I should quit politics. But my old videos were brought out and a controversy created. I understand the compulsions of the media. But what I did not say, what was not my intention, why show that by my name in six columns. Why are expert programmes asking if Gadkari is upset? I am not upset. I am very much happy doing my job.”
He said he ran 1,200 Ekal Vidyalavas in Gadchiroli, which was not his segment; made carpets with waste and that his social projects had a turnover of Rs 1,000 crore-plus.
“I have built a floating fountain 60 metre high, which is the world’s best. Now I am making a garden and have collected 6,500 varieties of roses, and 950 of lotus.
I am doing my job, I am very much happy about it. I have no ill-will towards anyone,” said Gadkari days after falling out with the top BJP leadership.