Do we like Nitin Gadkari?
Our score: 5 out of 10. Big public-works record and no campaign against any group found, but a remark on same-sex marriage and an unresolved ethanol conflict-of-interest row keep him mid-table.
Gadkari grew up in Nagpur, the youngest of three, and was around RSS activities from a young age. His first big political loss was the university students' union presidency, which he missed by six votes, before he found his feet in the BJP's youth wing in Nagpur. His mother was active in social and community work, and he's pointed to her as a major influence.
The rise was quick. In 1995 he became Maharashtra's Public Works minister, and the Mumbai-Pune Expressway and dozens of Mumbai flyovers went up on his watch. He became BJP president in 2009, but Outlook reports he was removed before the 2014 elections after corruption allegations. Since 2014 he has run roads and highways, and he's won Nagpur three times running, which is how he picked up the nickname Highway Man of India.
The row that dogs him now is ethanol. Critics allege a conflict of interest because his family's sugar business has an ethanol arm, while he pushes petrol blended with ethanol. He denies it flatly: he says ethanol is a tiny slice of that business, his share of production is just 0.07 per cent, and the policy wasn't his call alone. We found no official finding either way, so for now it's an allegation and a denial.
The fresh chapter is legal. Gadkari sued the platforms for ₹11 crore in damages over posts he says falsely tie him and his family to the E20 programme, and in August Justice Arif Doctor ordered them down. The judge said the posts were “abusive, vile and obscene” on their face, and the matter returns to court after four weeks. That order is about the abuse aimed at him online, not a finding on the ethanol question itself.
On the harm check, the main thing we found was a December 2024 podcast where he called live-in relationships “wrong” and said same-sex marriage would “lead to the collapse of the social structure”. That is a remark that will land badly for this page's readers, but it's one remark, and we found no campaign against LGBTQ+ people, nothing on trans rights, and nothing on migrants or vaccines. On the planet he pushes hydrogen, biofuels and EVs, though his claims that E20 is safe are disputed by some car owners, and he calls the criticism a paid campaign against him.
The good stuff is mostly concrete. Credit for building more than 90,000 km of national highways goes to him, along with work on malnutrition in Melghat in Vidarbha as a state minister and a national rural roads committee he chaired in 2000. Those are real public-works wins, though a road record isn't the same as a record on people's rights.