MUMBAI: Union Minister for Road Transport Nitin Gadkari on Thursday said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi was not confident that the BJP would post such a magnificent win in the Lok Sabha elections.
“I had met Modiji two days before the election results were announced. That time all TV channels’ exit poll surveys had predicted a huge win for the BJP. Modiji asked me what I felt about the predictions. I told him that I did not believe that. He said that he too felt the same,” Gadkari said while addressing a BJP conclave here.
Gadkari asked the party workers to behave like members of the ruling party. “We all have expertise in opposing things. Now, we are in power. Our dream has fulfilled but this is just a beginning,” he said.
He appealed to them to have patience on the issue of controlling food inflation. “We need to resolve the issue of inflation effectively. We have taken some measures. Some of them are of short term and some are of long term. Tell people that our’s is a sensible government. It will take some time to show results of our policies,” he said.Gadkari said that if roads and power supply were improved, the country’s GDP would increase from 4.5 per cent to 6.5 per cent in three months. Meanwhile, Mumbai BJP president Ashish Shelar courted controversy by saying that poor can get meal in `5 in Mumbai. “This is a city of paradox. On one side some can get food for `2,000 the poor can get their meal for just `5,” he said at the conclave. The BJP had protested similar remarks by actor-turned-Congress spokesperson Raj Babbar last year. Babbar had said that the poor can get full meal in Mumbai for just `12. The BJP had called Babbar’s remark as “insensible”.