New Delhi: Holding his previous portfolio, senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader Nitin Gadkari on Tuesday took charge of the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways. Gadkari is credited with reviving the languishing road projects from the UPA era and putting highway development on fast track.

While road building momentum continues, he will now have to further raise the scale of construction to create more jobs and bolster private investment.

In his previous term, Gadkari was considered a star performer working on multiple fronts to bid out new projects on innovative Hybrid Annuity Model (HAM).

Gadkari comfortably won the Nagpur Lok Sabha seat by a margin of 2,16,009 votes.




A former BJP president, Gadkari retained the seat by defeating his nearest Congress rival Nana Patole. Gadkari polled 6,60,221 votes, while Patole got 4,44,212 votes at the end of counting spread over 20 rounds.
In 2014, Gadkari had won the Nagpur constituency, which this time voted in the first phase on April 11, by a margin of 2,84,828 votes.