His first major interview addressing such issues was given to the news agency Reuters, and it has turned into something of a public-relations disaster for a man who normally has few troubles on that front. When asked if he regretted what had happened - a simple question that could have been the opportunity for a simple admission that, as chief minister, he bore some of the blame and he did indeed regret the deaths - Mr Modi instead revealed some of his thinking on the issue. He first pointed out that the special investigation team of the Supreme Court had given him a "clean chit" - a legalistic answer that, while an important point, matters little politically. However, the second part of his answer is more worrying. He asked: if "someone else is driving a car and we're sitting behind, even then if a puppy comes under the wheel, will it be painful or not?" This cannot but be seen in context, as a straightforward expression of his thinking. There are few ways of interpreting this comment that can be seen as helpful to Mr Modi. At best, he is comparing his grief at the hundreds of murders in 2002 to the sadness at the death of a puppy in a road accident; and his responsibility as chief minister in his state's rioting to that of a back-seat passenger when an accident kills an animal. Such thinking does not sit well on an aspirant to the prime minister's post.
Indeed, Mr Modi should realise that such thinking works against both him and his party. It will likely turn off a large number of younger voters who would otherwise be interested in him for his carefully maintained image as a development messiah. After all, the media glare on Mr Modi will only intensify. A speech on education policy at Fergusson College in Pune on Sunday received wall-to-wall coverage in the electronic media. There, again, Mr Modi made some statements that raised eyebrows: that education should guard against Westernisation, and that Kerala's excellent performance in literacy was not due to government efforts but because of a religious institution, the Shivgiri Math. Later, he accused the Congress of hiding behind "a burqa of secularism". Meanwhile, his trusted lieutenant Amit Shah, now put in charge of the BJP's prospects in Uttar Pradesh, visited Ayodhya recently and renewed a pledge to build a "grand temple" there. This is hardly the new direction in which the BJP needs to go in order to bring new voters into its fold - an essential requirement, if it is to be in a sufficiently strong position to form the governing coalition after the next polls.