Whatever little I have followed NaMo over the past few years, I think it will not be an exaggeration to conclude that his has been a career of extremes.
It goes without saying that NaMo is arguably best orator that India has seen in a long time. He has this uncanny knack of coming out with funny/profound/thought provoking one-liners/examples at the most appropriate time. He is gifted with this ability to present the most commonplace ideas in the most interesting manner. He has a way with words in short. One of the things that he said in one of his interviews aptly summaries his political career, especially what has happened in the last few years. He said “aafat aayi toh badi aur khushi ke din aaye toh woh bhi bade” and such has been his political life. Either one would be a hardcore NaMo fan or a NaMo critic. Very few people have had a ‘neutral’ view about NaMo.
Let us consider some events that have shaped his career in the recent past. His record as a Gujarat CM is something that has been debated more than anything else on prime time. I don’t want to get into the data as there are various sources providing the same data with huge variances. But a common thread that runs across the data derived from various sources is usage of terms like ‘largest’ or ‘fastest’ or ‘biggest’ with regards to the achievements of Gujarat under the leadership of NaMo. A NaMo critic may argue that Gujarat’s record on certain indicators like infant mortality rate has not been impressive. Apart from few slip ups, Gujarat has done well than most of the states adding a feather to NaMo’s cap. So the ‘extreme’ growth figures are largely justified.
Gujarat riots were one of the most of unfortunate incidents in Gujarat’s history. If someone is at fault then he should be punished accordingly but whether someone is guilty or not is for the judiciary to decide. But in NaMo’s case lot of people passed judgment without waiting for law to take its own course. Like he also mentioned once that no politician in India’s history has been targeted the way he has been in the past few years. Another extreme here: most targeted leader
Recently we witnessed another extreme: the ‘most exciting & extremely well planned campaign’ in the history of Indian politics. It has had far reaching effect if one were to consider the number of people it managed to mobilize and the number of seats BJP (read NaMo) ended up winning! He travelled more than 3 lakh kms, addressed more than 430 public meetings apart from his 3-D rallies and ‘chai pe charcha’ ! He not only managed to hold entire country’s attention over such a long period of campaigning but at the same time influenced people’s opinion positively by conveying the same message though various mediums with great effectiveness.
When you manage to influence so many people at the same time with your ideas, you are bound to get some media attention. According to CMS media labs, NaMo got 7.5 times more TV coverage (read ‘most coverage’) than Rahul Gandhi. So one hand he put in more efforts than anyone else to win people’s hearts/votes and on the other media coverage helped his cause. It was my eureka moment when I multiplied the number of seats won by Congress by 7.5 and got the number which was ‘extremely close’ to the number of seats won by NDA!
After all the hard work, it was the results time. And I must say NaMo did ‘extremely well’ with BJP managing to win majority of the seats. Again you would have cynics arguing that BJP only won 31% of vote share or 38% with allies included. But one cannot deny that it was and will remain ‘one of the biggest’ margins ever in terms of number seats won by a party. The achievement is even more noteworthy in the era of coalition government. And post the results; it was time for the ceremony! More than 4000 plus peopled gathered at his swearing-in ceremony. As I mentioned earlier: “khushi ke din aaye to who bhi bade!” Being a patriot that NaMo is, I am assuming it was his way of informing the world that “a new India has arrived”
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