Is Modi India’s next PM?

Indian state elections can be robust affairs, but the campaign currently being conducted in Gujarat is extraordinary even by these standards, with the Chief Minister being branded a ‘monkey’ and the Opposition Congress Party described as the ‘forces of darkness…an evil that must be swept away’.

This is on top of the routine accusations of bribery and general corruption that both Congress and its main opponent, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), hurl at each other as the two-phase poll, on December 13 and 17, approaches.

What makes the election especially interesting is the speculation surrounding the flamboyant, BJP-supported Chief Minister, Narendra Modi, who is seeking an unprecedented fourth term. Commentators are saying that if he is successful he will be ideally placed to make the transition to national politics and lead the BJP into the election of 2014.

With the ruling Congress Party in a degree of disarray following a series of corruption scandals – and uncertainty about who will succeed 80-year-old Prime Minister Manmohan Singh – Modi, easily Gujarat’s longest-serving Chief Minister, could well be the next leader of the world’s biggest democracy.

The Chief Minister has some impressive credentials, but also some skeletons in his cupboard. He achieved hero status last year when, on a visit to China, he claimed to have been instrumental in securing the release of 13 Indian diamond traders who had been jailed in Shenzhen on customs offences.

However, he is still dogged by accusations that his then fledgling administration did not do enough to stop Hindu-Muslim riots in 2002 in which more than 1000 died. Allegations that he actually encouraged violence against Muslims were rejected in court.

None of this appears to have affected his popularity in his own state and most recently he poured scorn on the ‘Cong’ (the BJP’s derogatory name for Congress) and its president, Sonja Gandhi, who visited the Gujarat on the election trail.

“Cong has no role to play in Gujarat, Sonia’s speech had nothing in it; the newspapers didn’t even publish it, just big pictures,” Modi said.

Congress’ main hope lies among the rural poor where the party’s national policies have led to some development, but while opinion polls are few and generally unreliable in India, the feeling is that Modi will win again.

If so, the 62-year-old will be ideally placed to take a shot and the top job in New Delhi.