Your hero slept through the night: Gadkari to Congress on Goa failure

New Delhi: Lavishing effusive praise on Nitin Gadkari in Lok Sabha on Friday, the Congress said Mr Gadkari was “sincere” and doing a “very good” job as Union road transport minister, but his role in Goa was “villainous”.

“In the Narendra Modi ministry, a few ministers are performing well. One among them is Nitin Gadkari,” said K.C. Venugopal (Congress) during a debate on the Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Bill 2016 which was tabled by the minister. The bill emphasises on road safety, computerisation and enhanced penalty for traffic offences.

Mr Venugopal was not the only one from the Opposition benches to express admiration for the minister. Congress’ leader in Lok Sabha Mallikajurna Kharge, Trinamul’s Dinesh Trivedi, BJD member Tathagata Satpathy and a few other Opposition members also showered compliments on Mr Gadkari who sat smilingat the rare praise of a treasury bench member from the Opposition benches.

“Even in the darkest of night, a single star looks bright,” Mr Satpathy said, adding that the surface transport minister is a “hard working person” who is hell bent on proving that good work can be done even if the government is bad.

But with the bouquets came with the brick with Mr Kharge saying: “He (Gadkari) is performing well. He has extended roads, highways, etc. but see the support. No members are there; there is no quorum. This is the mentality of our people. What is to be done? Why should we discuss? We are appreciating him.”

Mr Kharge was pointedly referring to near empty treasury benches suggesting there was not much appreciation for his work as a large number of BJP members were absent when an important bill has been introduced by him.

Mr Venugopal too butted in: “I cannot admit and approve that role which he has taken in Goa. That is entirely anti-democratic. He took a villain role in Goa for his party”.

The Congress has accused the BJP of using unfair means to attain a majority in Goa despite winning just 13 seats in the 40-member Assembly.

In a quick-witted riposte in an apparent reference to Digvijay Singh, Congress in-charge in Goa, Mr Gadkari retorted: “Why you are blaming me? Your hero had slept through the night... Your film would have run if your hero had not slept through the night?”

In contrast to the apparent bonhomie, the beginning of Zero Hour saw a stormy start when BJP’s Poonam Mahajan sought the Speaker’s attention to the alleged “brutal” attack on a BJP youth wing worker by CPI-M workers in Kerala and demanded dismissal of the state government. She also alleged that the Left party had killed several RSS and BJP workers.

Ms Mahajan’s statement saw a fiery response from the Congress and Left members. While Mr Venugopal alleged that the RSS was behind killings as well, including one Thursday night in his constituency, M.B. Rajesh (CPI-M) said RSS workers were behind the recent death of a youth and a Muslim priest.

On Thursday too, Congress and Left members from Kerala had clashed in the House over an incident in Thiruvananthapuram where the police had ill-treated the parents of a student who had allegedly committed suicide.