Ethanol blending: Congress alleges PM Modi has ‘army of nephews’; targets Gadkari

With Narendra Modi reviving his “naamdaar versus kaamdaar” barbs at the Opposition earlier this week in poll-bound Bihar, the Congress party, on Thursday (September 4) alleged that the Prime Minister had an “army of nephews” deriving financial benefits in sectors as diverse as cricket and ethanol blending – “from T20 to E20” – with the BJP-led central government looking the other way.

Also read: Opposition in Bihar to counter Modi’s ‘mother insult’ charge with aggression

Training its guns at Union road transport and highways minister Nitin Gadkari, Congress’s media and publicity department chief Pawan Khera dared Modi to announce an investigation by the Lokpal into Gadkari’s alleged “conflict of interest” in pushing the Centre on his pet policy initiative of blending 20 per cent ethanol in petrol.

Congress takes 'vote chori' swipe at PM

“Since 2014, we have been hearing Modi and Gadkari talk about ethanol blending and using municipal waste to generate ethanol… not even one litre of ethanol has been made out of municipal waste till date; rather of the 627 crore litres of ethanol produced so far, 56 per cent was made out of sugarcane while the rest was produced from grains and to produce just one litre of ethanol, 3,000 litres of water is consumed,” Khera claimed.

Also read: SC rejects PIL against nationwide rollout of 20 pc ethanol-blended petrol

The Congress leader then went on to assert that while Gadkari claimed that ethanol blending will bring down the cost of diesel and petrol to Rs 50 and Rs 55 per litre, respectively, the last 11 years had seen petrol prices soaring from Rs 71.41 to Rs 94.77 per litre while price of diesel went from Rs 55.49 to Rs 87.67 per litre. While the general public got no reprieve from spiralling fuel prices, Khera claimed, Gadkari’s sons made a windfall through ethanol blending.

Taking a swipe at the Prime Minister, Khera said while Modi had been elected to power for a third consecutive term through “vote chori” (vote theft), his “nephews” – sons of Union ministers Amit Shah, Gadkari, Jyotiraditya Scindia and National Security Advisor Ajit Doval, as per Khera – were involved in “note chori” (corruption).

Targeting Gadkari's sons

The Congress media department chief went on to claim that Nikhil Gadkari and Sarang Gadkari were directly linked with companies involved in ethanol production and supply, while their father, Nitin Gadkari, was involved in drafting the Centre’s ethanol blending policy.

Also read: Will ethanol-blended fuel ruin your engine? India's ethanol push explained

Quoting from public documents, Khera said, Cian Agro had posted a revenue of Rs 18 crore in June 2024 and “now, within a year, in June 2025, this revenue has jumped to Rs 523 crore (June 2025)”. The Congress leader pointed out that the stock price of Cian Agro too had seen an “unprecedented hike of 2184 percent” in just the past eight months as it was listed at Rs 37.45 in January this year but now stood at Rs 638.

Though it was Gadkari who came in for criticism from the Congress, Khera’s formulation of the diatribe, pivoted as it was not against ‘Gadkari’s sons’ but Modi’s “army of nephews”, makes for interesting political banter.

Is this Congress's new approach?

For long, Modi has sought to distinguish himself from Opposition leaders such as Rahul Gandhi, Tejashwi Yadav, Akhilesh Yadav, Hemant Soren and MK Stalin, among others, by asserting that while he rose up the political ladder through the blessings of the public despite having no political lineage, his opponents were dynasts born into privilege.

This ‘naamdaar versus kaamdaar’ rhetoric, which pit the ‘common man’ Modi against a dynastic Rahul or Tejashwi, was what the Prime Minister revived earlier this week when he hit out at the Opposition during a virtual event to launch a women’s cooperative federation in Bihar and claimed that the Opposition was now resorting to “abusing my dead mother” because leaders like Rahul and Tejashwi “cannot digest that a poor woman’s son is the country’s Prime Minister”.

By pointing out the continued patronage – political, social and financial – that dynasts from the BJP’s rank and file receive under Modi’s rule and dubbing the sons of BJP leaders like Amit Shah and Gadkari as the Prime Minister’s nephew, the Congress, perhaps, hopes to take a new approach to take the sting out of Modi’s self-proclaimed crusade against dynastic politics.