Gadkari set for Europe getaway...

New Delhi, May 15: Jharkhand is still scorching hot, so how do you cool off? Fly to Europe.

That’s what Nitin Gadkari is doing, never mind his party is still trying to stitch what appears to be an elusive coalition in the state.

The Nagpur-based businessman, who recently assumed the reins of the BJP, has decided to fly to Europe for a 15-day vacation with his family. No BJP president has given himself such a long holiday except in cases of urgent family matters, like a wedding or a death.

The only person privileged to have his annual retreats was Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Even L.K. Advani — who spent several summers on his political chariots — took his first known break after the 2009 elections when he visited Coorg.

But neither Vajpayee nor Advani headed the BJP when they took these breaks.

Party spokesperson Prakash Javadekar defended his boss. “It’s a good thing. Everybody needs to take a few days off and spend time with his family,” he said.

Javadekar himself is off to Leh-Ladakh for a week. Another senior leader, Ravi Shankar Prasad, is flying to America for his son’s passing-out ceremony.

Arun Jaitley is sailing on a Venice-to-Venice cruise. Indeed, Jaitley is the only BJP leader who religiously vacations every year.

But the party’s worker bees, sweating and fretting in the under-cooled cubby holes of the BJP headquarters, don’t look pleased. “We are underpaid and overworked. Maybe, we should agitate for leave travel allowance so that we can take our families to Nainital and Shimla,” said a worker from the media and publicity cell.

Gadkari would have taken off on Sunday but deferred his departure by a day as he has to attend Bhairon Singh Shekhawat’s funeral in Jaipur.

“Poor Gadkariji, it was a choice between work and family. He had promised this holiday to his wife and daughter months ago. His daughter told him, ‘spend 15 days with us and then it does not matter if you have no time for us’,” said an office-bearer.

Gadkari has overturned the notions of what a BJP president ought to be like. While everyone follows the 9am-to-5pm routine, the “bindaas” boss wakes up a little before noon, brightens up by early evening and is in form close to midnight.

The result is those who had the habit of turning in early are learning to stay awake past midnight. Like Rajnath Singh had to on Friday.

Singh, whom Gadkari replaced, was summoned by his successor at 11pm for a meeting on Jharkhand. He got back home at half past twelve.
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