unpredictable
Before 2001, Narendra Modi was just another politician, hanging out in Delhi and awaiting his big break. That finally came in 2001, when the BJP leadership decided to send him to Gujarat as CM. Just three days before he went, an Ahmedabad journalist phoned to ask when he was arriving. There was no way he was going to Gujarat as CM, Modi said. No one could assure the BJP’s victory, not even God, he quipped.
unpardonable
After taking over as CM, he said, “I have not come here to play a Test match but a one-day match. And to win it I have 12,000 hours.” Assembly elections were slated for 2002 and the countdown had begun. Godhra came as a godsend. Some of the second-rung leaders in the Gujarat BJP are convinced that if Godhra had not happened, Modi would have found some other technique to polarize the Hindu vote. Godhra earned Modi the mass murderer appellation but it also helped him win 127 of the 182 seats. He had wrought what God could not have.
unscrupulous
Modi saw to the ouster of Sanjay Joshi, the RSS’in-charge of Gujarat. A sex video involving Joshi was the last nail in the coffin. The meeting of half-clad sadhus on the eve of the Narmada water event challenged the might of the VHP. The sadhus declared Modi taller than the tallest of the VHP bosses. The farmers’ wing of the RSS, the Kisan Sangh, was ploughed underfoot. The Patel lobby is tottering under heavyweight Keshubhai. Modi was the first to reach the doyen of the Patels when his wife died in an accident. After getting some of the antisocial elements out of the way in encounter killings, Modi is a free man but his officers are under the scanner. He had carefully chosen RSS men to do the dirty job, it is believed. Even after three-and-a-half years, a Congress-led government at the Centre continues to gawp at Modi, unable to bring him to book or even file one criminal case against him. A day before Sonia Gandhi was to visit Gujarat, Modi got a couple of Congressmen to defect to the BJP.
performer
He is now donning a new cap. Modi’s image is of a man who has taught the Gujaratis to count money! Now, once again it is election time and Modi’s strategy is to dump his image of a Hindutva icon and highlight the vikas purush in him. The focus on a resurgent and vibrant Gujarat is set to cleanse all his sins of commission and omission and catapult him to success again.
coward
He sat through a recent television interview for just 240 seconds. Asked about his image as a “mass murderer”, on the basis of the Supreme Court strictures against his government and transfer of the Gujarat riot-related cases out of the state, he left in a huff. He flares at criticism.
schemer
He has proved to be a master schemer and manipulator who plotted to come to power in the state, and has the BJP central leadership on a tight leash. The Gujarat BJP is a house divided. All the friends on whose shoulders he rode to power have gone missing! Those who survived have turned against him. Gordhan Jharapia, who was Home Minister during the riots but is now the chief dissident, says Modi is a Hitlerian administrator. BJP MLAs have complained that they are not free to speak in the Assembly. During Question Hour they are believed to have been asked to sign blank forms, while the questions and the answers were provided by Modi’s henchmen. To his detractors, Modi is evil gift-wrapped in Hindutva garb. The party’s central leadership is too weak to unwrap him.
fraudster
The main charge against Modi is that he is playing into the hands of big industrial houses. He counts these industrialists as close friends and advisers. His critics allege he is buying Rs 22,000 crore worth of electricity from private companies instead of working to increase the state’s capacity Gujarat is paying Rs 5.30 per unit instead of the Rs 1.67 it would be paying the central grid. The state’s debt has increased from Rs 32,000 crore to Rs 90,000 crore; 80,000 smallscale units have shut down; 8 lakh workers have lost their jobs; farmer suicides are rampant and the Assembly records show that every day 12 people commit suicide due to economic reasons. Caring two hoots for the demands of party workers, Modi has not appointed a single one of them to the 42 boards and corporations in the state whose turnover is a cool Rs 60,000 crore. The panels are stuffed with bureaucrats with whom Modi deals directly. Modi’s propaganda machinery is so good that he has earned praise, awards and rewards from civil society for Gujarat being the number one state in development, and for attracting investments and funds.
split personality
Modi is perceived as a loner who enjoys the good things of life, has a very comfortable lifestyle, and is fond of the company of women. One Jashodaben, whom he is said to have married long ago, lives in her North Gujarat village where she is a primary school teacher. By all accounts, Modi has not lived with her for even a day but neither has he officially divorced her! After he became Chief Minister, a Gujarati weekly, Abhayam, interviewed her. She reportedly commented, “How does it matter whether he becomes the Chief Minister or the Prime Minister, my life will be the same and I will continue to live here.” Characteristically, Modi twisted the comment and remarked, “See, she believes I can become the Prime Minister.” However, she is now guarded by a number of plainclothes men and no mediaperson can meet her.
one-man team
Though he seems to depend on the bureaucrats, Modi is brusque with them. Even Secretary-level officers are not asked to sit when they are called into his chamber. Former CM and hardcore camp follower of the RSS Shankar Singh Vaghela was so disgusted with Modi and the BJP that he joined the Congress. Another former party CM, Keshubhai Patel, declares, “My one-point agenda is to see this Hitler out.” Other BJP leaders are also on the warpath. The BJP central leadership is caught in a bind. If Modi wins, he takes the cake with all the icing on it. If he loses, the party goes down like Humpty-Dumpty. If Modi the Hindutva icon wins, his claim to lead the party at the Centre strengthens. If Modi the vikas purush wins, his stranglehold on the coffers of the party tightens. Even as the fear psychosis leitmotif runs through Modi’s political career, the reluctance of political parties, media organizations and the bulk of civil society to take him on after the riots have encouraged the man to regard himself as a potential Prime Minister and the future saviour of the nation and its Hindu population.
Renu Mittal
Renu Mittal is a veteran Journalist of India. She has been reporting on the Congress Party affairs since 1983.
