There is a video of Narendra Modi that his detractors regularly fish out. It’s an off-record tidbit from an interview with ETV news network, shot days before the declaration of the 2014 Lok Sabha election results. As the cameras prepare to roll, a crew member offers a glass of water to Modi, who crudely dismisses him with, “Jaldi bahar ja.” Get out, quick.
There is a revealing facet of the video that is usually ignored. It’s when the interviewer tells the prime-minister-to-be that his TV news network’s coverage of an interview Modi had previously given Telugu daily Eenadu – part of the ETV group – violated the Election Commission’s “silence period”, when candidates have to pause all forms of campaigning. That interview, says the interviewer, was a “brilliant decision”. “It sells 20 lakh copies in Andhra alone,” he says, referring to the daily. “We ran it four times, including on the night before the election. We even got a notice from the Election Commission.”
