Prime Minister Narendra Modi landed in Delhi in the early hours of Monday after a 6-day visit to the US and Egypt and asked BJP president J.P. Nadda, who had led a group of BJP leaders to receive him at the airport, what was happening in the country.
Nadda, according to a PTI report that quoted a BJP MP who was present, replied: “…the country is happy”.
But Modi’s question to Nadda raised another question: Was the Prime Minister not keeping up with what was happening at home while he was away?
The Prime Minister is accompanied on foreign trips by officers from the Prime Minister’s Office and from the ministry of external affairs.
Yet, two MPs of the BJP who were at the airport, said Modi had enquired from Nadda how things were in India.
“He (PM Modi) asked Nadda ji how it is going here, and Nadda ji told him that party leaders were reaching out to people with the report card of nine years of his government, and the country is happy,” PTI quoted BJP MP Manoj Tiwari as saying.
Another BJP MP, Parvesh Verma, who too was at the airport, was quoted as telling reporters that “the Prime Minister asked what was happening in the country and how the party’s public outreach programme was going on”.
Unlike in the past, the BJP this time didn’t organise any grand welcome despite the claim of a “historic” visit to the US and Egypt. Only a group of party MPs and leaders from Delhi led by Nadda were at the airport.
Only last month, when Modi had returned after his three-nation visit to Japan, Papua New Guinea and Australia, a large crowd of BJP leaders and workers had gathered at the airport to receive him with drums, placards and slogans. A stage was also set up outside the airport and Modi and the other leaders delivered speeches.
Privately, party leaders said that a big show was avoided since Modi was scheduled to hold a meeting of his cabinet in the morning and Nadda had to travel to Kerala to hold rallies as part of the public outreach to mark 9 years of the Modi government. There was, however, no official statement from the government over the cabinet meeting.
Modi has so far been silent on the violence in Manipur. Reports, quoting sources, said home minister Amit Shah had briefed the Prime Minister about the situation in the state. There was no official communique on this either.
A release by the government’s publicity wing, Press Information Bureau, however, said PM Modi would be travelling to Madhya Pradesh on Tuesday to flag off 5 Vande Bharat express trains. Madhya Pradesh is scheduled to go to the polls later this year. Modi is also scheduled to attend a party programme and hold a rally.
The drum beating by ministers on Modi’s visit continued. Railway minister Ashwini Vaishnaw was deputed at the BJP headquarters on Monday — the fourth minister after Smriti Irani, Hardeep Singh Puri and Nirmala Sitharaman to extol the Prime Minister’s US and Egypt visit. The briefings at the party headquarters showed that the official trip was aimed to extract political mileage.
Vaishnaw, who faced calls to step down after the Odisha train accident that was the worst in the country this century, said that for the US, an “economic superpower”, to grant “equal partner” status to India was a great achievement and that it was all due to Modi’s work in the last 9 years.
He said Modi received a series of “genuine standing ovations” during his address to the joint session of the US Congress. “Even the Speaker stood up and participated in the standing ovation. This is an honour for 140 crore Indians,” he said.
