PM said Kejri was not worth his time: Book

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, before his Lok Sabha victory, described Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal as a politician who was not even worth the time to ignore, a new book has revealed.

Modi’s thoughts on Kejriwal, who was one of his rivals in the Varanasi Lok Sabha constituency, have been recorded in the now released “The Modi Effect: Inside Narendra Modi’s campaign to Transform India” by Lance Price.

Prince is a former BBC correspondent and communication advisor to former British prime minister Tony Blair as well as the Labour Party.

The book says Modi was “unmoved” and he “decided never to mention” Kejriwal, who later became Delhi chief minister for a second time, by name between then and polling day. Modi “certainly was not willing to cede” to the AAP leader the mantle of the anti-corruption candidate, but he also “showed himself to be much the superior political tactician”. “My silence is my strength,” Modi told Price during an interview for the book.

“You should know that in the grand scheme of things, Kejriwal was nothing but a small single city leader. He was getting far more coverage than he deserved as compared to other more established opposition party leaders. So why spend time even ignoring someone? It was therefore not even worth my time to ignore Kejriwal,” he was quoted as saying in the book.

Modi, who trounced the AAP leader by a margin of over 3.71 lakh votes in Varanasi, believed that Kejriwal was elevated by a “select group of vested media interests fuelled by the Congress” to target him and try and save the Grand Old Party.