Still sulking, Modi keeps CII waiting and waiting

But on Friday morning, without a word, Modi did not turn up at the Tagore Hall, where the inauguration was being held, leaving organisers to carry on after an hour’s wait.

Industry sources said recent embarrassments caused to Modi at CII functions, in Mumbai first — where a sociologist stood up to challenge him — and then in Delhi — where he lashed out at the CII bigwigs — may have led to this.

At the Mumbai meeting, sociologist Darayas Banaji had asked Modi if the post-Godhra violence in Gujarat was conducive to development.

Guards took Banaji away, but Modi had kept his cool and told offered an explanation that things were okay in the state.

But at the Delhi meeting last Thursday, Modi was angered when industrialists Rahul Bajaj and Jamshyd Godrej, who were on the dais with him, raised questions about law and order

in Gujarat. He went to the extent of telling the industrialists to mind their own business.

No official reason was given for Modi’s absence at the Petrominex meeting. When contacted, G.C. Murmu, managing director of event partner GMDC, said he did not know the exact reason for Modi’s

absence but ‘‘the chief minister might be preoccupied with some other engagements.’’

Perhaps a statement released by the CMO late on Friday evening may hold a clue. Inexplicably released three days late, the release referred to a Gandhinagar function organised on Tuesday in Gandhinagar to felicitate Modi.

The relase quotes Modi: ‘‘Referring to the personal attacks levelled against him at a meeting of 130 industrialists in Delhi recently, Modi said he maintained his poise and tolerated the attack. But when captains of industry like Rahul Bajaj and Godrej questioned the state’s law and order at a CII conference in New Delhi, and that too from the dais, Modi said he could not tolerate the insult of the five crore people of the state and gave them a befitting reply.’’

CII’s state chief Rajiv Singh, however, said he did not think Modi’s absence had anything to do with the Mumbai and Delhi incidents.

Incidentally, the guests of honour at Friday’s function, Union Petroleum Minister Ram Naik and Union Minister of State for Mines Ramesh Bais, also did not turn up.