For the second time in less than a week, Union Minister for Road Transport & Highways Nitin Gadkari has once again spoken against the party leadership, which is seen by many as a clear sign of growing resentment within the party against the Modi-Shah combo.

The diffrences within the party have started surfacing in the aftermath of the reverses suffered by the ruling BJP at the Centre in the just-concluded Assembly polls in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh where the incumbent BJP Governments were voted out of power and were replaced by Congress Party-led Governments. BJP fared very badly in Telangana as well.

Amid rumours that he might replace Prime Minister Narendra Modi as the party’s prime-ministerial candidate during the ensuing Parliamentary elections to be held in April/May, Gadkari (who apparently enjoys the backing of the RSS, the ‘head’ of the Sangh Parivar) recently went on record asking the party leadership to own up its failure for not putting it across during the recent Assembly polls.

“Everyone wants a share in success while failure is the proverbial orphan. Those who celebrate party’s victories simply ‘disappear’ when the party loses,” Gadkari said a few days back in what is seen as a clear reference to party president Amit Shah’s reluctance in facing the press after the Assembly poll debacle. He also said that it was the president’s duty to ensure that party MPs/MLAs worked hard for poll campaign.

Gadkari has also taken a stance which is opposite to that of Modi and Shah in the contentious Mekedatu Dam construction issue involving Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. “We won’t allow construction of the Dam at Mekedatu (by the JD-S, Congress-backed Govt.) across Cauvery without Tamil Nadu’s consent,” Gadkari has said.