Taking full credit for the BJP’s victory in the Lok Sabha elections, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said he heard vociferous demands for a “trusted name and not a party name” all through his campaign and that people “believed Modi was the only hope”.
In a series of interviews to British author Lance Price — whose book, The Modi Effect: Inside Narendra Modi’s Campaign to Transform India, was released recently — the PM also dismissed Aam Aadmi Party chief Arvind Kejriwal, who contested against him from Varanasi, as “nothing but a small single city leader” elevated by a group of “vested media interests fuelled by the Congress” to target him.
“In all corners of the country, they believed Modi was the only hope and wanted to see him win,” Modi told the former BBC correspondent and Downing Street communications expert, explaining the highly-personalised campaign.
The remarks fly in the face of RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat and BJP patriarch LK Advani’s assertions that the victory was a result of people’s desire for change and not due to “any individuals”.
“Past elections have shown Indian culture is such that people have tremendous faith and trust in the individual. People wanted clarity about who the leading person will be and I was seeing this question asked in every meeting I attended and hearing vociferous chants of ‘give us a trusted name, not a party name’,” said the PM.
He also revealed that shortly after his election as Gujarat chief minister in 2002, an astrologer had predicted that God had the PM’s post in store for him. Citing his belief in maro bhagya vidhata (putting oneself at the disposition of God’s will), he said, “If this is the case, why be afraid? I have never worn a bulletproof jacket.”
