Rarely it happens in India that opposition leaders get in sync on a certain issue and then get inspired. In a recent case, former Union Minister and senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh confirmed to have bought a Tata Nexon EV after the exchange with Union Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari during the Budget Session, 2022.
Taking to Twitter, the Congress general-secretary in-charge of communications wrote on 6 August: "After this exchange with @nitin_gadkari on March 22nd, I got myself a Tata Nexon EV. I firmly believe India should put an end to manufacturing of all types of petrol and diesel vehicles by 2035 at the very least, and massively bring down the cost of EVs."
Earlier on 22 March, Ramesh during the Budget Session in Rajya Sabha raised his concerns with Nitin Gadkari over the phasing out of petrol and diesel vehicles and encouraging electric vehicles by bringing down prices.
The Congress leader can be heard asking Gadkari if India has a specific roadmap to phaseout all the petrol and diesel vehicles, as he was also concerned that the private car manufacturers won't be getting incentives for the same.
On this, Gadkari said that the government has launched a scrapping policy citing India has lot of petrol and diesel vehicles. The Minister also agreed that the amount of pollution generated by one 'old vehicle' is equivalent to the pollution generate by four new vehicles.
However, Gadkari requested the Congress parliamentarian to not call for any 'fixed program' with 2035 or 2040 as a deadline for phasing out petrol and diesel vehicles. He was of the opinion that EVs will be the natural choice over petrol and diesel vehicles since it is cost effective.
