India minister Gadkari’s PM job offer claim fuels talk about Modi’s successor

Speculation began to swirl after Road and Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari said that he had rejected opposition offers to lead the country

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Nitin Gadkari, India’s minister of road transport and highways, during an energy summit in New Delhi last month. Photo: Bloomberg

Published: 10:00am, 7 Oct 2024Updated: 4:27pm, 7 Oct 2024

As India enters crucial state elections, speculation over a possible successor to Prime Minister Narendra Modi has emerged after a top government minister disclosed that he had rejected advances from opposition parties to challenge Modi’s leadership, stirring debate on the future of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Road and Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari, who oversees India’s ambitious highway development efforts, told local media late last month that he had declined opposition leaders’ offers to support him for the position of prime minister both before and after the April-June national elections.

“I asked them, ‘Why do you want me to be the PM, and why should I not be with the PM [Modi]?’ So, becoming prime minister is not my ambition,” Gadkari said, without revealing who the offer came from.

His remarks come ahead of four crucial state elections, in which the ruling BJP faces uphill battles following the loss of its outright majority in the last national elections.

Polls in Jammu and Kashmir have concluded, while Haryana’s final voting phase took place on Saturday. Results for Jammu and Kashmir and Haryana are expected to be released on Tuesday. Two additional states, Maharashtra and Jharkhand, will hold elections before the end of the year.

A Kashmiri woman shows her marked finger outside a polling station after casting her vote in the second phase of the assembly election in Srinagar, the summer capital of Indian Kashmir, on September 25. Photo: EPA-EFE

Sandeep Shastri – director of academics at Nitte Education and national coordinator of the Lok Niti Network, which studies elections – said states had become the centre of Indian politics. “State elections will play a major role in shaping national politics,” he said.