Check the facts: Why Modi needs to shake off his 'Feku' reputation

Narendra Modi may have ignored his ‘Feku’ tag with dignity and thrown the name calling ball right back at the Congress when he referred to Rahul Gandhi as ‘Shehzada’ (prince). But the BJP Prime Ministerial candidate’s tendency to ignore some facts, embellish others and sometimes make up his own, reportedly have the BJP a little worried.

According to this report in the Times of India, “Though BJP managers do not think Modi’s pro-change image has been hurt by allegations of factual inaccuracies, they are taking note of the leader being tagged as hasty with opinions based on incorrect assumptions.”

Although the BJP has been brushing off constant allegations that Modi tends to twist the truth in order to sound impressive, it looks like this has been happening one too many times for the party’s liking.

Modi “slipping up in a speech where he confused a Gujarati freedom fighter with Jana Sangh founder Shyama Prasad Mookherjee has given rise to some concern over the BJP PM hopeful losing gravitas unless he takes corrective action," the TOI report added.

Most recently, it was Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar who went after Modi, calling him an expert in “jhooth ki kheti” (Harvesting of lies) for saying that he had been ‘feasting’ at a JD(U) convention in Rajgir despite the blasts at BJP’s Patna rally.

“He has again gone wrong. I had cancelled my scheduled programme at Munger on 27 October to attend an international yoga convention and had proceeded to Rajgir from there. It’s on record, anybody can check,” Nitish said on Monday.

Earlier, Nitish had gone after a number of factual inaccuracies in Modi’s Hunkar rally speech, including his pointing out that Takshila was in Pakistan and not Bihar, and that Chandragupta belonged to the Maurya dynasty and not the Gupta dynasty as wrongly claimed by Modi.

And Nitish is not the only person who has attacked Modi in this manner.

In September, Finance Minister P Chidambaram accused him of staging a ‘fake encounter’ with facts for claiming that growth had fallen to 4.8 percent under the UPA from 8.4 percent under the NDA in a speech made to US NRIs. " “Wonder why Narendra Modi should stage a fake encounter with facts. Ultimately, facts will prevail”, he said then.

In another incident, the Congress party released footage of former Prime Minister Jawarhalal Nehru at the funeral of Sardar Patel, after a newspaper claimed that Modi had said that Nehru had not attended. Later both the newspaper and Narendra Modi denied having ever made that claim. But the damage had already been done. Members of the youth Congress even went so far as to send him history books .

Modi was also attacked for saying that China dedicated 20 percent of its GDP to education, when really the country had increased its education spend by 20 percent. (China actually spends around 4 percent of its GDP for education.)

The fact is that Modi could well do without all these incidents, as even his most fundamental claim that he is the man to lead India to a prosperous future is under scrutiny. And that is the Gujarat growth story.

Neera Chandhoke points out in EPW that

Gujarat’s performance in poverty reduction and human development has been poor compared to other states which are growing at a lower rate. According to the 2011 India Human Development Report, in the human development index the state slipped from the 5th rank in 1996, to the 9th rank in 2006. It is the worst performer in child malnutrition with 69.7% of children up to the age of five anaemic and 44.6% malnourished. Health indicators for the scheduled tribes (STs) are worse than that at the national level, and also poorer than that for other social groups in the state. According to the Global Hunger Index brought out by the International Food Policy Research Institute, India ranks 66 among the 88 countries listed. Among the five worst performers is Gujarat. Gujarat’s literacy rate is only marginally above the national average, and is extremely low in the tribal belt. In sum, Gujarat has proved to be one state where social welfare has not proved commensurate with increases in rates of economic growth.

The Congress in particular, which has little else to counter the BJP with, is jumping at these opportunities. Especially given that Rahul Gandhi’s performance at the helm is not finding too many takers inside the Congress Party.

As pointed out in this piece , “With the key state polls, including crucial ones for the Congress like Delhi and Rajasthan, all set to end this year, Rahul’s attempts to make the Congress party fall in line with his vision might have come after an unfortunate delay. The proof that his actions haven’t gone down well with sections of the Congress is evident from a recent incident where Congress MP Meenakshi Natarajan was locked up by dissenting party workers in Neemuch, Madhya Pradesh.”

Added to that is the fact that his rallies are simply not drawing the kind of crowds that the Congress would like to see, and so the opportunity to take on the BJP’s star campaigner as nothing more than a weaver of lies is simply too good to miss.

None of this means, of course, that Modi is the only politician who ‘bends’ facts or indeed selectively uses them in India. And the Shyama Prasad Mookherjee blunder could well have been an honest mistake, as claimed by the BJP. However the frequency with which this has been happening is providing welcome fodder to the Congress and other Modi rivals like Nitish Kumar’s JD(U).

Because the fact remains that as someone who is seemingly obsessed with debunking Congress’ ’lies’ it just doesn’t do for Modi to look as though he never checks his facts.