INDIA: PROFILE - India's Prime ministerial frontrunner - Narendra Modi - inching closer to the crown

Record ID: 1376919

  • Title: INDIA: PROFILE - India's Prime ministerial frontrunner - Narendra Modi - inching closer to the crown
  • Date: 10th May 2014
  • Summary: NEW DELHI, INDIA (MAY 08, 2014) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (Hindi) HAFIZ ZULFQAR, A MUSLIM MAN, SAYING: "Modi is tainted with a lot many blames and rumours. Now we cannot see and pretend not to have seen. We have to think about it. There is definitely something fishy if the world is pointing fingers at him."
  • Embargoed: 25th May 2014 21:52
  • Keywords:
  • Location: India
  • Country: India
  • Topics: General,Politics,People
  • Reuters ID: LVA5F889283UX0HMC1FCYR6YBBGG
  • Aspect Ratio: 4:3
  • Story Text: Narendra Modi, the hot favourite to be India's next prime minister, stands on the cusp of leading the world's most populous democracy, after an election that looks set to make his party the country's biggest.
    Polls have consistently shown voters favouring Modi, a divisive but charismatic figure, to lead the country - gaining a march over his main opponent Rahul Gandhi, the political heir of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty appointed to lead the Congress campaign.
    Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has benefited from a wave of public anger over corruption scandals and a slowing economy under the ruling Congress, which may be facing one of its weakest-ever showings at the polls.
    The nation has witnessed political spasm, wars of words, blame games and several controversies surrounding the political big-wigs during the five-week-long election, which is scheduled to end next week.
    In his last attempts to woo voters as the mammoth general elections proceeded in full swing, Modi has continuously urged people to give him a chance to serve after having seen 60 years of Congress party mis-rule.
    "You have chosen rulers for 60 years, now give a chance to a servant once. You have given 60 years to Congress, try giving me 60 months," he said at one his rallies in eastern Darjeeling region.
    Narendra Damodardas Modi, now 63, was born and brought up in Vadnagar, a town built on a hill in rural Gujarat.
    The third child in a family of eight that struggled to makemeet, he ended his education after school and abruptly left home, only returning years later for his father's funeral.
    Controversy caught hold of Modi when for the first time in over a decade he revealed his marital status as married while filing his nomination from western Vadodara city. His party claimed that his' was a child marriage and Modi left his wife while they were young. However, she still remains married to him.
    The tea stall his father ran with the help of his sons is just as it was then, a small shed of patched blue-grey tin on the platform of the ramshackle railway station nearby.
    But Modi has come a long way from that small dwelling near the railway station.
    Under Modi's 12 years as the chief minister of Gujarat, the state boasts one of the highest growth rates among Indian states thanks to Modi's business-friendly policies.
    In a recent research report, U.S. investment bank Goldman Sachs estimated that if other Indian states boosted manufacturing employment to levels achieved in Gujarat, India could create 40 million industrial jobs in the next decade.
    The BJP under Modi's stewardship has promised to kick-start the economy, bring in factories, and educate the densely populated and still-poor heartland states of India.
    Modi himself has promised to get India out of its economic downturn and creating jobs for its burgeoning young population.
    "I am in favour of running the government in a very professional manner. The biggest crisis that the country faces today is a crisis of confidence. India faces a crisis of stagnancy, we need to give it momentum - if we can start on these, then other things will start moving on their own," he said.
    Voting in the world's most populous democracy, where about 815 million people are casting their votes, will end on May 12. Results are due to be announced on May 16.
    Business leaders, both Indian and foreign, flock to a biennial gathering called "Vibrant Gujarat" that Modi launched in 2003 to attract investment to his coastal state.
    Anil Ambani, a prominent billionaire industrialist, said at last year's event that their host was "a lord of men, a leader among leaders, and a king among kings".
    U.S. ambassador to India Nancy Powell met Modi in February, ending his decade-long U.S. boycott. It brought Washington's policy in line with other major powers that had shunned him because of deadly religious riots that occurred on his watch, but have now warmed to a man who has overseen fast economic growth in his home state of Gujarat.
    Modi's vision, his view on the growth and development of the country, his idea of tighter border control and a stricter way of dealing with neighbours has raised eyebrows but has also bagged him many admirers.
    Political analysts like N.K. Singh said Modi has brilliantly created an image of a go-getter who does not tolerate any non-sense and is committed to take the country forward.
    "He has carved out his image as if he has zero tolerance towards corruption. He is one who is good developer, he speaks in development jargons; he is one who can develop the society, the human development index and economy also. He is a good administrator - that is what the impression people have got. And he is the man who is against Pakistan, who is very firm in his utterances. So therefore, here is a man in whose regime there will be no terrorism," said Singh.
    Modi is, however, scarred by accusations that he turned a blind eye towards, or even encouraged Hindu-Muslim riots in 2002 in western Gujarat, the state he has governed for 13 years. More than 1,000 people, most of them Muslims, were killed in the violence.
    Modi has always vehemently denied that he allowed the bloodshed, driven by a Hindu nationalist agenda, and a Supreme Court inquiry found no evidence to prosecute him.
    Throughout the election campaign he has sought to project himself as moderate, not a champion of the Hindu majority.
    But suspicion lingers, particularly within India's sizeable Muslim minority, many of whom fear a rise in communal tensions.
    "Modi is tainted with a lot many blames and rumours. Now we cannot see and pretend not to have seen. We have to think about it. There is definitely something fishy if the world is pointing fingers at him," said a Muslim shopkeeper in New Delhi, Hafiz Zulfqar.
    Underlining how he divides opinion, critics also speak of an authoritarian who at times rides roughshod over the democratic process and espouses moderation while concealing an agenda less benign.
    Modi has filed his nomination from two constituencies in western Vadodara and holy city of Varanasi.
    Elections in India's sprawling democracy are notoriously difficult to predict, however, and translating vote share into actual seats won is not always reliable.
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