New Delhi: No one knows Narendra Modi’s mind except the next prime minister himself. He has solely driven this general election and is the primary architect of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s extraordinary and epochal victory. The stakes were high with Modi as Gujarat’s chief minister. But they would infinitely be higher when he is sworn as prime minister next week. This commentary, a special one, is in the nature of an alert. His political detractors and the enemies of India are determined to get him, because he alone of his generation (the immediate post-Independence generation) has the potential to hurtle the country to greatness. His success depends in some measure on who all he appoints to the top cabinet posts of home, finance, defence and foreign affairs. At least one great power has suborned one of his (least) likely choices for one of the four posts. The covert agencies have a full file on the person, who cannot be named for obvious reasons. Narendra Modi would do himself no harm and the country a great deal of good by seeking quiet intelligence clearance of his probable top cabinet choices, one of who remains highly compromised in the estimation of this writer.

Foreign powers did not expect this decisive result in favour of Narendra Modi. They had prepositioned their favourite candidates in the expectation that the Bharatiya Janata Party and the National Democratic Alliance would fall grievously short of the majority numbers. One candidate identified early for the defence portfolio fell by the wayside. The approach was made to the person when the person held an important position in the shadow government. The second candidate was also won over in this period, with the person in question displaying a marked proclivity towards a great power that had shown unprecedented hostility towards Modi. The idea was simple. In case a majority eluded Modi, these two persons, one or both, would be positioned to take over as prime minister, with the discredited “liberal” establishment incited to take up cudgels on behalf of one or both of them. For all the determination of the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangha not to make anyone other than Modi the prime minister, there was the danger that it would succumb to the unbearable pressure brought on it. It is Narendra Modi’s bold gamble and brilliance that upset the applecart.

With plan A failed, the great power, with other Western countries in tow, embarked on the fallback option, which is to infiltrate its surviving candidate into one of the four top Union cabinet posts. In a moment of indiscretion, the candidate let drop to stooge reporters (the mainstream media is near totally infiltrated) that any cabinet post other than defence, foreign affairs, finance and home would be unacceptable. It would befit the candidate’s seniority not to be considered for less. There was no substantial mention of the cabinet committee on security. But that is the key. Any of the top four posts gives access to the highest-level cabinet committee, where the most secret and sensitive national security issues are engaged with, including India’s military nuclear posture and plans, foreign relations, the neighbourhood policy, internal security, Kashmir, China, and so on. The inimical great power wants access to the deliberations of this committee, and it has prepared a mole. Narendra Modi cannot be too careful who he invites and permits into this critical cabinet committee.

For some time, there has been great disquiet that the prime minister’s office has been penetrated. No less alarming than Sanjaya Baru’s revelation that files of the prime minister’s office were shared with Sonia Gandhi are reports that it has been under successful surveillance of foreign intelligence agencies. This is over and above human penetration. Quite apart from Manmohan Singh’s shabby pro-Americanism, he ran a very leaky prime minister’s office. But the scale of danger to the upcoming Narendra Modi government is many times higher, in part because he is the lynchpin to India’s rise, and the foreign powers want to sabotage his success. This writer need not advise Modi on how to handle the new threat, where the cabinet committee on security is sought to be subverted, but at the least, he must identify the prospective mole, and isolate the burrower from government, or in a position where no state secrets are accessible, such as agriculture or rural development, without compromising on the productivity and delivery of these strategic ministries. India’s expectations from Narendra Modi reach the sky, and as determined as he is to fulfil them to excess, there is steely resolve too among his and India’s enemies to destroy him.

Be vigilant, Mr Prime Minister,