Media is Modi's cheerleader: Rajdeep Sardesai

He said the media is working as Prime Minister Narendra Modi's 'cheerleader'.

When asked about media’s role in creating a buzz about Modi wave, he said, “See, the media is Narendra Modi’s cheerleader. I have said it before, Mr. Modi should send out six thank you cards. He should send a card to Rahul Gandhi for being Rahul Gandhi because Rahul Gandhi never misses an opportunity to miss an opportunity.”

He added, “He needs to send another thank you card to Manmohan Singh because Manmohan Singh was silent for so long, we wanted somebody who talks all the time. First you had a Prime Minister who would never speak, now you have a Prime Minister who speaks all the time. You’ve gone from one extreme to the other. And India wanted that perhaps, the younger India wanted a Prime Minister who constantly communicates.”

“He needs to send one thank you card to Akhilesh Yadav because in Uttar Pradesh, he sold so many dreams in 2012 but in the last two years offered such a terrible Government that it became so much easier for Narendra Modi to to go to UP and say look, I’ll give you 24 hours power. Fourth thank you card should go to, in my home state of Maharashtra, Ajit Pawar. When there was a draught last year, he made a ridiculous statement that ‘Farmers who want water, they should go urinate in a dam’. Now, whenever you go in Maharashtra today, farmers remember such statements. All these things reflected the utter callousness of the Government of Maharashtra.”

"Fifth thank you card should go to Mani Shankar Aiyar, because Narendra Modi, in the 20 years that I’ve known him, never told me that his father used to sell tea. But suddenly Mani Shankar Aiyar reminded both Modi, and the country that his father sold tea. Now we don’t know whether Mr. Modi’s father actually sold tea or not but Mani Shankar Aiyar created a situation where Mr. Modi appeared a genuine self-made man and the Congress appeared a party of elitism. And I think that helped particularly in middle-class India because middle-class India today appreciates people who are genuinely self-made. The sixth thank you card should go to the media,” he added.

On being asked about the title and the content of the book, Sardesai said, “This title has been done, as most titles are done, by marketing people. To be honest, I don’t think so and if I left it to myself, I wouldn’t have said ‘The election that changed India’, I think it’s 'the election that has the potential to change India'. It’s the election that has changed the way elections would be fought in India”

“India is not going to change in 6 months. Just about five minutes away from Starmark, there was a wall and I was seeing this policeman urinating on the wall, so much for Swachh Bharat. Narendra Modi can talk about Swachh Bharat and he can talk about how India is transforming but the fact is the economy is still not, you know, is still growing all too slowly,” he said.

Sardesai said, “What has changed though, I think, is that now India has its first right-of-centre government under Mr. Modi. Mr. Modi is India’s first genuine right-of-centre government leader. Atal Bihari Vajppayee headed a coalition Government. This is very much a BJP Government and therefore it has the potential to change school syllabi. It has the potential to change the way we knew the whole notion of nationhood. It has the potential to change the way the Prime Minister is perceived in terms of his muscularity.”

On being asked about the changes in India, which he anticipates in his book, he said, “Whether it will change India, we’ll know five to ten years from now. There are a lot of expectations. The other day, the price of tomatos went up and my driver asked me straightaway “Saab, Wo toh Modiji bola tha ache din aayenge” (Sir, Mr. Modi said the good days are about to come), so what happened? There’s a lot of hype that has been created and that hype, some of it, has the potential to translate into actual delivery. If that translates into actual delivery, then you could say, in certain areas India could change.”

He said West Bengal Chief Minister Mamatra Banerjee is an integral part of his experience in the 'City of Joy' Kolkata.

Talking about his journalistic experiences in West Bengal he said, “Mamata Banerjee is the integral part of most of my experiences in Kolkata. The interview that I did with her last time was in Delhi when she walked out in the middle and came back. For some reason, I’ve had a decent relationship with Mamata di. At one level you grow to respect politicians whatever they are. It’s a tough life. I also remember covering the Left and Jyoti Basu. I remember having a beer with Jyoti Basu in Durgapur, while covering the 2001 Bengal elections when Budhha Babu first became the Chief Minister. It was great listening to Jyoti Basu over a glass of beer.”

(Reporting by Torsha Banerjee)