Nitin Gadkari

New Delhi, Nov. 5: Nitin Gadkari has been accused of comparing Swami Vivekananda’s IQ to Dawood Ibrahim’s at a public event, the ideological gaffe strengthening the calls within the BJP for the embattled party president’s head.

“As per psychology, if we compare the IQ levels of Swami Vivekananda and Dawood Ibrahim, it could have been almost the same,” goes the quote attributed to Gadkari at a Bhopal award ceremony yesterday.

“But Vivekananda used it in (promoting) nation-building, brotherhood and spiritualism while Dawood used it in excelling in the crime world.”

The mention of “saint” and “sinner” in the same breath has stunned the BJP and the RSS, which is celebrating the iconic monk’s 150th year in a big way, and allowed the Congress to rub salt into the rival’s embarrassment.

Sources said the faux pas had especially angered Narendra Modi, who fears the Congress has been given a handle to mock his just-concluded pre-poll Vivekananda Yuva Vikas Yatra across Gujarat.

Sure enough, Congress general secretary Digvijaya Singh asked in a tweet today whether Modi and his fans had anything to say about Gadkari’s comment.

“What would the BJP say if tomorrow someone put Gadkari’s IQ on a par with Ajmal Kasab’s?” Uttar Pradesh Congress MP Jagdambika Pal said.

Late this evening, Gadkari “clarified” that he had been “grossly” misquoted. “What I said was that if one used one’s intelligence properly, one could become a saint like Swami Vivekananda,” he said.

But BJP insiders admitted that the damage had been done. “It is unbecoming of anyone, especially a BJP chief, to say something like this,” a Sangh source said.

Sangh spokesperson Manmohan Vaidya, however, was evasive, saying: “We have just got the information.”

More pressure piled on Gadkari today with lawyer Mahesh Jethmalani, son of BJP Rajya Sabha member Ram Jethmalani, quitting the party national executive with a salvo at the party chief.

“I deem it morally and intellectually inappropriate to continue to serve on the party’s national executive committee as long as you are the president of the party,” Mahesh said in a letter to Gadkari.

When the controversy over Gadkari’s financial dealings broke, Jethmalani Sr had demanded that the party president step down immediately.

Although Mahesh does not rank very high in the BJP, his resignation threatens to fan the growing anger against Gadkari and his patron, the Sangh, into an open protest.

BJP sources said party leaders had urged Sangh chief Mohanrao Bhagwat to act soon. They said Bhagwat was arguing that since Gadkari’s term ends on December 19 anyway, it would be “more becoming” to let him leave with honour.

The BJP is worried that Gadkari’s continuance may derail its plans for a vigorous “corruption” campaign against the Centre during Parliament’s winter session, which begins this month.

Sources claimed the Centre was deliberately stalling a probe into the fake companies Gadkari allegedly owns so that he remains at the helm and the Congress can ratchet up its attack on the BJP.

The Jethmalanis are close to Modi and have emerged as his main legal advisers. Ram Jethmalani secured his Rajya Sabha seat from Rajasthan after Modi persuaded Vasundhara Raje to overlook some central leaders’ objections.

There’s a buzz about a Modi hand behind Mahesh’s departure. That the fault-lines are deepening was evident from the willingness with which Lok Sabha Opposition leader Sushma Swaraj and former BJP chief Rajnath Singh shared political space with Gadkari today.