On The Road With Nitin Gadkari

Indefatigable and full of enthusiasm, Nitin Gadkari has thrived as a cabinet minister in Delhi. Now he’s on the campaign trail in Nagpur, looking to win a second term as an MP in his home town. On the road with India’s transport minister.

- Raj Chengappa

Nitin Gadkari to Nagpur from Delhi. Scores of passengers greet him as he settles down in his seat. For the Union cabinet minister, the trip on March 23—a Saturday—is a homecoming of sorts. Just the previous day, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had cleared his candidacy for the Nagpur constituency in the upcoming Lok Sabha election—a seat he won handsomely in 2014. He is flying in to file his nomination papers.

As the IndiGo aircraft taxies to a halt at the Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar airport in Nagpur, Gadkari invites me to join him on the short drive from the apron to the terminal building. There is a sense of pride as he points to the spanking new airport complex and the metro rail line that connects it to the city centre. Both are projects that Gadkari worked hard to bring to fruition. Rattling off the details, he says the Multi-modal International Hub Airport at Nagpur—MIHAN for short—is a joint venture public sector company that is laying the foundation for massive industrial growth in the city by making the airport a cargo hub for the special economic zone across 40 square kilometres that has come up next to it. “Nagpur will save enormous costs for international cargo flights from East and South Asia to distribute goods to Central India, apart from relieving the congestion at Mumbai and Delhi airports,” he says.