I didn't take name of Modi or BJP, clarifies Gadkari

A day after Congress President Rahul Gandhi accused the BJP of making tall promises to come to power -- as shown in a purported video -- Union Road Transport and Shipping Minister Nitin Gadakari on Wednesday described it as a baseless report. He said he did not take BJP's, or Prime Minister Narendra Modi's name or "about Rs 15 lakh promise".

Addressing a press conference here, Gadkari said the said video was made during the Maharashtra assembly elections.

He said he was asked a question on elections. "I said during Maharashtra polls, Gopinath Munde and Devendra Fadnavis suggested scrapping of toll tax in the state if BJP came to power. I told them it should not be done since it will create a lot of financial roadblocks. So they told me whether I actually believe that BJP would form the next government to which I said if we do, we will have to. Since we did not have the experience of being in power, we used to make a lot of announcements in the manifesto," he said.

He further said that Fadnavis fulfilled the promise of scrapping toll tax after coming to power in the state.

Slamming a newspaper, Gadkari said, "A Delhi-based newspaper carried a baseless report. I did not take name of BJP, Prime Minister Narendra Modi or Rs 15 lakh."

"And then Rahul Gandhi tries to share the video in which the language used is Marathi that he doesn't understand. He has done something like this in the past and should have got that video properly translated," he said.

--IANS

aks/prs