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Union Minister Bhupendra Yadav has grown from being a close confidant of former BJP president and Union Home Minister Amit Shah to become one of the party’s key strategists. The 61-year-old lawyer was tasked with crucial political assignments as BJP general secretary, including looking after crucial states like Gujarat and Bihar since Narendra Modi became Prime Minister in 2014. For the first time, he became a Rajya Sabha MP in 2012 from Rajasthan and was renominated from the same state to the Upper House again in 2018 before being sworn in as a Union Cabinet Minister for Environment, Forest and Climate Change; and Labour and Employment in 2021. This is his first Lok Sabha election as a candidate from Alwar in Rajasthan. Yadav spoke to businessline on a range of issues. Excerpts:
From being the BJP’s backroom strategist to contesting the LS election yourself, how are you adjusting to this transformation?
I am enjoying every moment. I’m relaxed. I have covered each and every panchayat of Alwar LS constituency. I leave home at 6 a.m. and return around midnight. I am thankful to the party leadership for giving me this opportunity. I have worked as election in-charge in many states but this is my first direct election.
Was it your choice or party’s decision to contest the elections?
I have always been a committed party worker and whatever the party decides, I follow. I have been working in this constituency for the last 40 years. I have done 193 works with my Rajya Sabha MP funds. I had adopted four villages in Alwar as part of the model village scheme. As Union Environment Minister, I have also worked for construction of an elevated road and started the ESIC Medical College and 150-bed ESIC medical hospital.
But you are being branded as an “outsider”...
You should ask the Congress what their definition of an outsider is (Yadav hails from Haryana). They are trying to spread this lie. I have been working in this area for the last 40 years. I have family and social ties here.. I know more than 100 party workers here by name.
The government is facing the charge of denying the Opposition a level playing field. What do you have to say about the manner in which a sitting chief minister has been arrested just before the polls and the bank accounts of the principal opposition Congress have been frozen?
Should level-playing field be with the corrupt? What you are doing through fair means will decide the level-playing field. If somebody is facing corruption charges then he needs to answer for it.
But why this selective approach. When leaders facing corruption charges join the BJP, they get areprieve.
It was the Congress that had filed a petition in the court against Arvind Kejriwal in which he has been jailed. Is there an underhand deal between the two? The action against Kejriwal is based on court proceedings. The Congress gave an affidavit in court (in Kejriwal’s case). They should clear their stand first. So they (Opposition) don’t trust the court too?
The question is of people like Ajit Pawar, Ashok Chavan and many others who have earned a reprieve after joining the BJP.
Proceedings against no one have been dropped. The law will take its course. Nobody is above the law. There is no government interference in any of the cases. Courts are independent in this country.
If the BJP is so confident about its victory, why is this rush to poach Opposition leaders?
Expansion of a party should take place. Every party aspires to expand. The more people join in, the better it is, isn’t it? If people are ready to accept our ideology and join us, then what is wrong in it?
BJP says this election will decide the fate of the country. What is the significance of this election in your view?
Elections in a democracy are for an alternative. But in this election, there is no Opposition. So, people are voting to make Modi PM. This rare phenomenon takes place only when the credibility of an incumbent government and leader is very high.
What do you have to about charges that BJP benefited unfairly out of electoral bonds?
At least electoral bonds have made it very clear who got how much. Opposition has got more than what we have received. BJP has 303 MPs and governments in many states, people should appreciate clarity and transparency in the scheme.
Rahul Gandhi says electoral bonds scheme is evidence of corruption against the Modi government and that they will use it to fix accountability when their government comes to power. Your comments.
There is no evidence of corruption.
Is BJP undergoing a generational shift? Many Rajya Sabha MPs have been asked to contest polls and new faces have come up to manage elections for the party.
The BJP is a democratic party. There is a process of evolution, and for qualitative change. This is a speciality of the BJP. Since the ’70s, 80s, 90s, new leaders were promoted. If you see, there have been five to six party presidents in the last ten years. On the contrary in family-run parties, it’s only a family member who becomes president of that party.
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