Modi blames media for PM-in-waiting image

Emerging from the self-imposed two-day seclusion after the BJPs Lok Sabha poll defeat,Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi....

Emerging from the self-imposed two-day seclusion after the BJPs Lok Sabha poll defeat,Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi on Monday claimed he had never tried to project himself as the PM-in-waiting,had no national aspirations and had always talked only about serving Gujarat.

Waiting to take a flight for Delhi on Monday morning,Modi told mediapersons at the Ahmedabad Airport that it was the media which kept on projecting him as the PM-in-waiting during the poll campaign,and that he had nothing to do with it.

The PM material hype was first set off by top corporate honchos Anil Ambani and Sunil Bharti Mittal while sharing the dais with Modi at the Vibrant Gujarat Global Investors Summit in Ahmedabad this January,where they hailed him as a potential PM.

During the campaign for the just-concluded LS polls,BJP leaders Arun Shourie and Arun Jaitley visited Ahmedabad and insisted that Modi had all the qualities of a future PM. So much so that the state BJP prided itself on having two PM candidates one in L K Advani for the 2009 polls,and the other in Modi.

On both the occasions,however,Modi had not reacted to his being projected as the future PM.

In a two-page statement issued by the state BJP on Monday evening,Modi put all the blame for the PM-in-waiting hype on the media. During the poll campaign,some friends from the media were constantly trying to corner me,seeking to know why I am not coming out of Gujarat to play the role at the national level. Some of them even asked me questions during interviews giving an impression that I was acting against national interests by serving only Gujarat. But,right from the beginning,my objective has been clear: I serve Gujarat and will continue to do so in future,too, the statement said.

In his analysis on the poll outcome in Gujarat,Modi observed that the BJP had increased its tally by just one seat in the LS elections in the state,and that some Congress stalwarts too had been defeated. The BJP lost some seats by narrow margins of some 10,000 votes. But it won both the LS seats in the neighbouring Union Territories of Daman and Diu and Dadra and Nagar Haveli,where the campaign was entrusted to the Gujarat BJP.

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Referring to the poll results in Goa and Maharashtra,Modi said Raj Thackeray-led MNS was responsible for the division of votes of the BJP-Shiv Sena alliance in Maharashtra while the BJP in Goa had been able to maintain a status quo as far as the poll outcome was concerned.

Without referring to the Congress-led UPA,the Gujarat CM said a new government was going to be formed at the Centre,and that Gujarat would continue to make progress which would contribute to the development of the country. Modi has never been self-centric in his life. I am ever ready to dedicate his life to the service of the people of Gujarat, he was quoted as saying in the press statement.