“All programmes will continue as per schedule,” BJP spokesperson Nirmala Sitharaman asserted on Thursday.

However, party sources admitted that the allegations may cast a shadow on his second term as the party president with the current term set to expire by the end of the year.

Even as the party is in the process of assessing the potential fallout of carrying on with a party president battling allegations of wrongdoings in the backdrop of BJP’s high-pitch anti-corruption campaign against the government, party leaders have decided to make a virtue out of Gadkari’s offer to face probe. This came to fore on Thursday during a rally in Himachal Pradesh where party leader Sushma Swaraj attacked the Congress alleging that the ruling party runs away from probe while Gadkari has volunteered for probe.

“When Congress leaders’ faces were blackened, they decided to malign us and accused our president. But he did not sit at home. He faced the media alone and replied to all charges made against him. He is the only leader to have volunteered for a probe into the allegations against him from any agency, even though these agencies are controlled by them (government)...He is confident that he will not be found guilty,” she said at a rally in Sundernagar.