On the morning of May 16, 2014, when counting of votes polled in the Lok Sabha elections was on, Narendra Modi was alone in his room meditating with no television on and took telephone calls only after 12 noon.
This and several other titbits about Modi, his life - both personal and political - and the poll campaign find mention in a new book The Modi Effect: Inside Narendra Modi’s Campaign to Transform India by Lance Price, former media advisor to the then British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
Published in India by Hachette, the book also quoted the PM dismissing Aam Aadmi Party chief and current Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, who contested against him from Varanasi, as “nothing but a small single city leader”.
He was getting far more coverage than he deserved as compared to other more established opposition party leaders. So why spend time even ignoring someone?
This specific interview was taken before the Delhi Elections in 2015.
Price, who was also a journalist with BBC in the 80s and 90s, asked Modi several questions over several interviews. When asked about why his campaign in 2014 was all about ‘Vote Modi’ rather than ‘Vote BJP’, Modi responded:
Past elections have shown that 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 being asked in every meeting I attended and was hearing vociferous chants, of “Give us a trusted name not a party name”.
Modi also spoke with Price about BJP’s relationship with big corporate donors.
“There was a lot of writing that we were using private aircraft from the corporates. Please keep in mind that if necessary I will also hire cycles to run the campaign.”
“We needed aircraft to criss-cross the country to manage a campaign of this scale and handle the diversity in India. Our party paid for every bit of the expenses that were incurred in leasing anything that we used,” he added.
(WIth PTI inputs)
Read exclusive excerpts from The Modi Effect here.
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