The fifth floor of Transport Bhawan houses the office of the Minister for Road Transport Highways and Shipping Nitin Gadkari. The waiting room adjacent to his room has a frame on the wall that depicts excerpts from a Harivansh Rai Bachchan poem that says, ‘Ek ajeeb si daur hai ye zindagi, Jeet jao to kaee apne pichhe chhut jate hain, aur haar jao to apne hi pichhe chhod jate hain , baith jata hun mitti pe aksar kyunki muje apni aukat achhi lagti hai…(Life is a strange passage… if you are a winner, many of your loved ones are left behind… and if you lose, most of your loved ones leave you behind… perhaps it is best for me to be seated on the sand of life)
Gadkari, a once-RSS strongman believed in his style of politics of being bold and fearless. He cared little for the whims of the powers that be in this government. He wanted to appoint a reliable official as Member (Traffic) of the National Highway Authority. But the PMO bumped this off. The head of government got a call from the RSS Supremo, naming a different person: “He is a good official from Vidarbha and quite close to the RSS. He should be appointed there.” Within a few days, the ‘Khaki-man’ got the ‘saffron’ signal. And thus it is that the lines of Bachchan became a reality for Gadkari: ‘Achhey ne achhaa aur bure ne bura jana muje, kyunki jiski jitni zarurat thi,usne utna hi pehchana muje.”