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Narendra Modi

    • 38 posts
    May 1, 2014 8:53 PM IST

    Narendra Damodardas Modi (About this sound pronunciation (help·info), born 17 September 1950) is an Indian politician and is the incumbent and 14th Chief Minister of the state of Gujarat. He is a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and is the prime ministerial candidate of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance in the 2014 Indian general elections.

    Modi was a key strategist for the BJP in the successful 1995 and 1998 Gujarat state election campaigns, and was a major campaign figure in the 2009 general elections, eventually won by the Indian National Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA). He first became chief minister of Gujarat in October 2001 after the resignation of his predecessor, Keshubhai Patel, and following the defeat of BJP in the by-elections. In July 2007, he became the longest-serving Chief Minister in Gujarat's history, at which point he had been in power for 2,063 days continuously. He is currently serving his fourth consecutive term as Chief Minister.

    Modi is a member of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and is described as a Hindu nationalist by media, scholars and himself.[1][2][3][4] He is a controversial figure both within India and internationally[5][6][7][8] as his administration has been criticised for the incidents surrounding the 2002 Gujarat violence.[8][9] He has been praised for his economic policies, which are credited with creating an environment for a high rate of economic growth in Gujarat.[10] However, his administration has also been criticised for failing to make a significant positive impact upon the human development of the state.[11]

    Modi was born on 17 September 1950 to a family of grocers in Vadnagar in Mehsana district of what was then Bombay Presidency (present-day Gujarat), India.[12] He was the third of six children born to Damodardas Mulchand Modi and his wife, Heeraben. He helped his father sell tea at Vadnagar railway station when a child and as a teenager he ran a tea stall with his brother near a bus terminus.[13][14] He completed his schooling in Vadnagar, where a teacher described him as being an average student, but a keen debater who had an interest in theatre.[13] That interest has influenced how he now projects himself in politics.[15]

     

    Modi's parents arranged his marriage as a child, in keeping with the traditions of the Ghanchi caste. He was engaged at the age of 13 to Jashodaben Chimanlal and the couple were married by the time he was 18. They spent very little time together and were soon estranged because Modi decided to pursue an itinerant life.[13][16] However as per Modi's biographer Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay, the marriage was never consummated.[17] Having remained silent on the question of marriage in four previous election campaigns, and having claimed that his status as a single person meant that he had no reason to be corrupt, Modi acknowledged Jashodaben as his legal spouse when filling in his nomination form for the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.[18][19]

     

    Little is known of the two years that Modi spent travelling, probably in the Himalayas, and he resumed selling tea upon his return. He then worked in the staff canteen of Gujarat State Road Transport Corporation until he became a full–time pracharak (propagandist) of the RSS in 1970. He had been involved with the RSS as a volunteer from the age of eight and had come into contact with Vasant Gajendragadkar and Nathalal Jaghda, leaders of the Jan Sangh who later founded the BJP's Gujarat state unit.[13][20] After Modi had received some RSS training in Nagpur, which was a prerequisite for taking up an official position in the Sangh Parivar, he was given charge of Sangh's student wing, Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, in Gujarat. Modi organised agitations and covert distribution of Sangh's pamphlets during the Emergency.[13] Modi graduated in political science from Delhi University.[17] Modi remained a pracharak in the RSS while he completed his Master's degree in political science from Gujarat University.[21]

     

    Early political career

     

    Modi formally joined the RSS after the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971.[17] In 1975, the then Prime Minister of India, Indira Gandhi declared a state of emergency and jailed political opponents. Modi went underground in Gujarat, occasionally disguised, and printed and sent booklets against the central government to Delhi.[17] He also participated in the movement against the Emergency under Jayaprakash Narayan.[22][23] The RSS assigned Modi to the BJP in 1985.[20] While Shankarsingh Vaghela and Keshubhai Patel were the established names in the Gujarat BJP at that time, Modi rose to prominence after organising Murli Manohar Joshi's Kanyakumari-Srinagar Ekta yatra (Journey for Unity) in 1991.[13] In 1988, Modi was elected as organizing secretary of BJP's Gujarat unit,[24] marking his formal entry into mainstream politics.[17] As secretary, his electoral strategy was central to BJP's victory in the 1995 state elections.[20][25][26]

     

    In November 1995, Modi was elected National Secretary of BJP.[27] In May 1998, Modi was elevated to the post of the General Secretary of the BJP and was transferred to New Delhi where he was assigned responsibility for the party's activities in Haryana and Himachal Pradesh.[25] After Vaghela, who had threatened to break away from BJP in 1995, defected from the BJP after he lost the 1996 Lok Sabha elections, Modi was promoted to the post of National Secretary of the BJP in 1998.[13] While selecting candidates for the 1998 state elections in Gujarat, Modi favored people who were loyal to Patel over those loyal to Vaghela, helping to put an end to the factional divisions within the party. His strategies were credited as being key to winning the 1998 elections.[25]

     

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