Narendra Modi’s journey from Vadnagar to New Delhi

Prime Minister Narendra Modi was born on September 17, 1950, at Vadnagar in Gujarat’s Mehsana district to Damodardas Modi and Hiraben. He is the third child out of Damodardas’ six children. As a kid, he was known as ND and had a patriotic fervour since childhood.

He did his schooling at Vadnagar’s BN High School. He left his home at the young age of 17. 

Active in politics, he went underground when the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi imposed Emergency. During this period, he penned a book named Gujarat. 

Modi had an interest in politics since adolescence. He did a Master’s degree in political science from Gujarat University. 

In 1998, Bhartiya Janata Party leader Lal Krishna Advani chose him for campaigning in the Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh elections. 

When the then Gujarat Chief Minister Keshubhai Patel resigned in 2001, he was sworn-in as the CM on October 7, 2001. 

He won four subsequent Assembly elections, thus becoming the only Gujarat CM to have done so. 

In the 2014 Lok Sabha election, Modi contested from two seats: Varanasi and Vadodara. Among his supporters were religious leaders Baba Ramdev and Morari Bapu and economists, such as Jagdish Bhagwati and Arvind Panagariya. 

Among those who opposed him was Nobel laureate Amartya Sen, who said he did not want to see Modi as the Prime Minister. According to him, Modi did nothing to assuage the concerns of the minorities and the health and education sectors were in poor condition during Modi’s tenure. 

In 2014, Modi won from both the seats from where he contested. In Varanasi, he defeated the Aam Aadmi Party chief Arvind Kejriwal and in Vadodara, he defeated Congress’, Madhusudan Mistry.

As an MP cannot stay elected from two seats, Modi vacated Vadodara seat on May 29, 2014, and continued being an MP from Varanasi. 

With his resounding victory, Modi was unanimously chosen as BJP’s leader and was called by the President to form the government.

On May 26, 2014, he took the oath as India’s prime minister. He is India’s first prime minister, who was born after the country attained independence in 1947. 

For his swearing-in ceremony, he invited the leaders of SAARC nations. Those present at the ceremony included Pakistan’s PM Nawaz Sharif, Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa, Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai, Bhutan’s PM Tshering Tobgay, Nepal’s PM Sushil Koirala, Maldives’ President Abdulla Yameen and Bangladesh’s Speaker Shirin Sharmin Chaudhury.

In the 2019 general election, PM Modi secured another five-year term after registering a landslide victory by winning 303 seats of 543. Commenting on the numbers, Modi said it was “a historic mandate” as more than 600 million people voted in a six-week process.

“We all want a new India. I want to bow down my head and say thank you,” Modi said.

(Disclaimer: This article was first published on September 17, 2020)