Moditva - book release and dialogues

BJP president Rajnath Singh on Tuesday said his party’s prime ministerial candidate  Narendra Modi believes in “positive secularism” and not in “perverted secularism” and claimed that minorities’ income in Gujarat under the Modi Government was “the highest” in the country.

Releasing a book, Modittva-The Idea Behind The Man, a collection of 14 short essays derived from quotes used by Modi during 13 years as Chief Minister of Gujarat, Singh said it was “a vote bank policy” that has driven a campaign of allegations against Modi including those relating to 2002 riot. “Divide and rule” is a thought behind those who want to run down BJP’s prime ministerial candidate.

The book has been compiled by Siddharth Mazumdar of Citizen for Accountable Governance (CAG) and his young team of professionals. It claims to have a volunteers force of over 2,00,000 “trying to shape public discourse in India.”

The foreword of the book is written by former police cop Kiran Bedi, senior BJP leaders Subramanian Swamy and Jaswant Singh. The 54-page-book gives snap-shots of Modi’s idea like — ‘secularism means India First,’ ‘Minimum Gover-nment, maximum governance,’ ‘Development Politics over Vote bank politics,’ ‘Per drop more crop,’ ‘Farm to fiber, fiber to factory, factory to fashion, fashion to foreign(5F),’ ‘Take the university outside the campus’ and ‘Pehle Sauchalaye, phir Devalaya.’

According to Majumdar, to ensure objectivity, all quotes have been selected from the speeches of Modi before he was declared BJP’s prime ministerial candidate for the 2014 polls.

Besides the BJP president, others who spoke on the occasion were Swamy, senior journalists M J Akbar and Swapan Dasgupta, and economist Prof Bibek Debroy and Bedi.

Modi later tweeted: “I congratulate the youngsters of Team CAG for their tireless efforts in compiling the book. Extremely grateful to Rajnath ji & other distinguished guests for their kind words & insightful suggestions at launch of book Moditva.”