What was Narendra Modi doing in ‘Smashaan’ when Atal Bihari Vajpayee called him?

Narendra Modi is a man of deep emotions, his outlook is so tough, that many people think he is a man without emotions, but truly he is a soft man within. People in Gujarat who have know him since long, say that he is not how the media describes him.

Many of his close associates say that PM Modi as a person is a very humble man and he  shows lot of concern for all people. He talks to everyone and listens to each one’s problem. There are many instances that how Narendra Modi has helped many people even before he became the Chief Minister of Gujarat. Today media may project him as an Authoritarian and as dictator, but it was the same media who had a very close relation with Modi 15 years back.

Narendra Modi today is hardly seen talking to people in media, he keeps distance with all journalists and never gives them any importance. He instructs his government officials and also instructs ministers to keep distance from media. But this wasn’t the case 15 years back. When PM Modi was the General Secretary of BJP, he regularly interacted with media and journalists and had many close friends in media. The reason was, then media was not this commercial and there were many sincere journalists who worked as jornos and not as PR agents of political parties. So PM Modi’s relation with media was quite cordial.

The best example of this was during 2001, just before PM Modi took over as the Chief Minister of Gujarat, the then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee had called him to invite him to his house.

When Atal Bihari Vajpayee asked where was he, Narendra Modi had replied “I am in Smashaan”, to which Vajpayee had laughed and said “If you say you are in Smashaan, then what shall I tell” and asked him why was he Smashaan.

Narendra Modi then had replied saying that “I was here to attend the funeral of a journalist called Gopal, who had died in the plane crash along with Madhav Rao Scindia.” He said “everybody went to the funeral of Madhav Rao Scindia, but nobody cared about this poor journalist.”

He said that there was no one except 2-3 friends of his, so he had gone there to show respect. This is the real nature of PM Modi.