Nitin Gadkari says Opposition, media 'twisted' his statements after landing in soup for 'leadership should own defeat' remark

Mumbai: Union minister and BJP leader Nitin Gadkari on Sunday said some Opposition parties and a section of the media have “twisted” his statements, an assertion that comes in the backdrop of his “leadership should own up defeat” remarks. [caption id=“attachment_3017358” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] File image of Nitin Gadkari. AFP[/caption] The BJP stalwart on Saturday had said nobody is willing to own up to failure unlike success and maintained “leadership should have the ‘vrutti’ (tendency) to own up defeat and failures”. The minister, who was speaking at an event in Pune, did not elaborate, but his comments assumed significance in wake of the BJP’s defeat in just-held Assembly polls in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan. However, Gadkari, known for speaking his mind, said Sunday his statements have been twisted. “In the last few days, I have noticed a sinister campaign by some Opposition parties and a section of the media to twist my statements and use them out of context and draw politically motivated inferences to malign my party and me,” he wrote on the micro-blogging site Twitter. Gadkari claimed there was a “conspiracy” to create a wedge between him and the BJP leadership. “I have time and again strongly refuted such insinuations and once again condemn all these malafide and mischievous out of context reports attributed to me. “Let me make it clear once and for all that conspiracies to create a wedge between the BJP leadership and me will never succeed,” he tweeted. “I have been clarifying my position at various forums and shall continue to do so and expose these nefarious designs of our detractors,” he said.