 "Tears well up as Modi turns emotional")
As Modi walked into Parliament’s Central Hall, pausing to go down on his knees to touch his forehead to the doorstep, to the hardened and the cynical it might have seemed a disingenuous and forced unsophisticated gesture. Many cringed. But Modi’s speech explained it was not. “I have never been in the Central Hall,” he said in wonderment midway through his speech. “I am looking at the pictures (of makers of the Constitution) around me… they say it’s my victory. It is not, it is the victory of those who struggled for our independence, our Constitution... and died struggling. Their pictures are on the walls. It’s their victory.”
Modi added: “Maybe this is my destiny: That I have never been schooled into greatness. When I became chief minister of Gujarat, I walked into the Gujarat Vidhan Sabha for the first time. When I entered the chief minister’s chamber it was for the first time.”
Before him, L K Advani had already put aside the acridity of his own defeat in race for the top job and sounded an emotional note in his speech. “This building,” he said, looking around him, “its construction began in 1927. That was the year I was born. When we got independence in 1947, I had tears in my eyes. When I walked into this building after the 1977 elections and being jailed, I had tears in my eyes. And today, too, when the party I have dedicated my life to, has surpassed all expectations… people asked me why I had tears in my eyes. I was just so overwhelmed. And this is the favour that Narendra Modi has done us”.
Blog: If tears could talk
Gently, for the first time — and possibly for the last — Modi reproved Advani publicly. “Advaniji, you said I have done a ‘favour’. A favour,” he asked, his voice cracking. His eyes welled up. “This country is like my mother. This party is like my mother. Does any son do his mother favours?”
He stopped. He paused. He drank some water. Then gulped some more. And tears flowed freely down Smriti Irani’s cheeks. Ravishankar Prasad wiped his eyes. Sumitra Mahajan hunted for a handkerchief and couldn’t find one, so used her sari’s pallu instead. R K Sinha furtively dabbed at the corner of his eyes. Amit Shah took off his glasses and polished them violently. And Giriraj Singh, the man against whom several criminal cases have been filed, wept unashamedly. It was an indescribable, indelible moment for everyone in that hall.
Modi then recovered, resuming his matter-of-fact speech. “There are different ways of evaluating this victory. If people had voted for a hung Parliament, it would have been different. But we have got a full mandate. It is a measure of optimism and hope people have from us. I did not get the opportunity to serve the nation in the independence movement. I was born after that. But I am getting the chance to serve the nation now.”
Modi said the rallying cry in the campaign was sabka saath, sabka vikas. He said his government was committed to development of every section. But it was important to have everyone together. This was the only veiled reference to those — especially the minorities — who might not have voted for BJP. He added: “Ideology has its place. But aachaar (behaviour) also has its own place. I don’t consider I have become prime minister. It is that my senior leaders have lifted me on their shoulders and have elevated me to these heights.”
Although the Central Hall was studded with shades of saffron, not once did anyone raise the slogan of Jai Sri Ram. It was always Bharat mata ki jai and har har Modi.