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Journalism of Courage
Purnesh Modi, 57, could not have asked for a bigger vindication. Among the two ministers dropped unceremoniously from the last Bhupendra Patel government, and not accommodated in the current, Modi was back on Thursday the man of the moment as it was his complaint against Rahul Gandhi that led to the Congress leader’s conviction.
A lawyer by profession, Modi has been with the BJP since 1984, a large part of it spent in the Surat unit and, last year, won from the Surat West Assembly seat for the third time. The OBC leader and lawyer is also a trustee of the Surat Modhvanik Samast Panch, member of the Sarvajanik Education society, and president of the Samast Gujarat Modh Modi Samaj trust.
Modi started his political career as booth-level convenor of the Wadi falia-Soni falia ward (in the Walled City area of Surat) before becoming a youth wing president of the same ward. He then became an executive body member of the Surat city BJP in 1995, and was municipal councillor between 2000 and 2005. In this time, he also served as the Standing Committee chairman of Surat Municipal Corporation.
From 2007 to 2009, Modi served as BJP election in-charge in Dang Assembly seat and Billimora Nagar Palika polls, while also overseeing the BJP organisation in South Gujarat.
In 2010, he became the Surat city BJP president, and served for two consecutive terms, till 2016. In 2013, he won as Surat West MLA for the first time, and continues to retain the seat, while in 2017, he was made parliamentary secretary of the Gujarat government.
Modi became a minister only in 2021, when the BJP overhauled its entire Gujarat Cabinet. He was made Minister of State, with the portfolios of Road and Buildings, Tourism, Pilgrimage Development, and Civil Aviation. But in August 2022, as the BJP prepared for the Assembly elections, the Road and Buildings portfolio was stripped from Modi, amid talk of delayed works.
The BJP reportedly did not take kindly to his launching an app in his name either, where people could post pictures and complaints about bad roads in their respective areas, so that these could be repaired. Most of the responses that poured in talked about bad roads, the inability of the government to improve them, and Modi’s attitude towards party workers.
Modi was dropped from the Cabinet, and not brought back even after he won the Assembly elections again in December 2022.
He filed the complaint against Rahul in 2019, after the latter’s speech in Kolar, Karnataka.
