Dinesh Kamath's Editorial 'Should Modi be the PM?' that was published in Newsband

Should Modi be the PM?

The Bharatiya Janata Party has some members who hate Narendra Modi. But there are some who support him too. The idea of Gujarat Chief Minister running for Prime Minister in 2014 has started a kind of war within the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance.

Modi has impressed tremendously sections of his party by his terrific performance in his home state Gujarat. But there are many members of BJP who would not like to see the party returning to its old, robustly militant character under the divisive, muscular leadership of Modi. The Gujarat CM has created some loyal men around him and these men are most of those yesteryear party leaders whom he has rehabilitated.

Modi’s third consecutive victory in the Gujarat Assembly election was extremely impressive. The Chief Minister pretended to be modest and as if he was focusing only on Gujaratis till he won the election. But after that Delhi zoomed into sight and the man who promised to “live and die” for Gujarat addressed his local audience in Hindi.

This gave birth to debates and battles within the party and the BJP helmsman Nitin Gadkari lost his post. Gadkari had to suffer for having defied Modi at one time. The people who ousted Gadkari are all for immediate elevation of Modi to the position of Prime Minister-in-waiting. The father-son pair of Ram and Mahesh Jethmalani and Yashwant Sinha are Modi’s closest loyalists.

With Gadkari gone, Modi is showing signs of making huge gains. The factor that goes against Modi is that not one member of the BJP’s top rung has endorsed his candidature. They firmly believe that the party has more capable leaders than him. They are totally against Modi’s authoritarian style. They also believe that rise of Modi can finish the NDA since the Janata Dal (United) is against Modi. Even the Shiv Sena prefers Sushma Swaraj to the Gujarat Chief Minister.

Hence, whether Modi should be used as PM material is a big question for BJP, yet to be taken. Modi is a big national figure, no doubt about that. But there are many haters of his dominating style. Some feel that rise of Modi will create trouble not only within the nation but also spoil India’s relations with foreign countries.

But one question that some political pundits are asking is will not Modi prove to be a boost for our nation whose political condition currently is not at all good for development of the nation?