Modi sidelines BJP, asks voters to exercise franchise for him

In a manner reminiscent of his victory in Gujarat in 2012, BJP prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi appears to be bypassing his party by asking the electorate to vote directly to him.

In the BJP’s radio advertisements aired on Saturday, Modi was heard as saying: “Today I am seeking a vote for myself. I want tell all voters that your vote will reach me directly.”

According to political observers, Modi is putting himself before the party in a sales pitch to offset public dissatisfaction with party candidates and divisions within the BJP. Some of Modi’s detractors, however, view the morphing of Modi’s image as the party’s only face with consternation and as a setback to the BJP’s internal democratic structure.

It is noteworthy that the latest statement is reminiscent of Modi’s bold assertion during the Gujarat elections, when he sated: I am your candidate on all 182 assembly seats. Every vote you cast for the local BJP candidate is for me.”

Meanwhile, addressing a rally of party workers Modi seemed highly upbeat about his prospect of winning the elections and said that people know the outcome of these elections even before they have taken place, implicitly claiming that his win is a foregone conclusion.

He also predicted a complete rout for the Congress party in the polls. “This would be perhaps the first election after independence … when not a single candidate of the Congress party would be elected from some states,” Modi said. He went further to predict: “There will not be a single region or state where the Congress party will be able to reach double-digit strength. It will not get even ten seats in any of the states.”

In response, the leader of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), Sharad Pawar, addressing a rally alongside Congress leader Sonia Gandhi in Nagpur on Saturday, ridiculed Modi’s upbeat tone and said that the BJP’s prime ministerial nominee had strangely declared himself victorious even before the elections. “Modi is a groom in a hurry. He is behaving as if he has already got elected to the top post,” Pawar wondered in Nagpur on Saturday.

• India