BJP leader and Union Minister for Road Transport and Highway, Nitin Gadkari gave a controversial warning to contractors responsible for the construction of roads, saying that they would find themselves “under a bulldozer” if their work wasn’t executed properly.
In an address to a gathering of unorganised labourers in Madhya Pradesh’s Betul area, on Friday, 18 May, he said:
Yahan jitne bhi thekedar kaam kar rahein hai, ek Delhi se nahi aata. Ek rupaye ka brashtachar nahi. In rastonke malik aap hai. Kaam theek hua hai ya nahi ye dekhna aapka kaam hai. Agar gadbad karenge to maine thekedaron ko bolke rakha hai bulldozer ke neeche gitti ki jagah aapko dal dunga (None of the contractors working here comes to Delhi. You are the owner of these roads. It’s your job to see if construction work is good or bad. If there is any shortcoming, I have told contractors that I will put them under a bulldozer in place of crushed stones).
Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan was also present at the event, The Indian Express reported.
At a different event, on Saturday, 19 May, BJP leader Harshvardhan Bajpai, who represents Allahabad North constituency in Uttar Pradesh Assembly, was caught on camera making controversial remarks about the Superintendent of Police in Allahabad.
Bajpai was heard saying, “Tum laato ke bhoot ho, laaton se hi maante ho (Some stubborn people only understand the language of violence)”, ANI reported.
This happened when the SP failed to recognise the MLA and stopped him at the gate of a venue where a meeting was being held by Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, ANI reported.
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