‘The Architect of the New BJP’: New book focuses on PM Modi’s organizational skills

PTI, Jul 10, 2022, 5:16 PM IST

Be it his experiments with traditional methods of party-building, keen eye for detail or application of various innovative methodologies to expand the party, a new book offers a deep insight into the organizational skills of Prime Minister Narendra Modi that it claims laid the foundation of the new BJP.

”The Architect of the New BJP: How Narendra Modi Transformed The Party”, slated for release on Monday, is written by senior journalist Ajay Singh — currently serving as the press secretary to President Ram Nath Kovind.

Published by Penguin Random House India (PRHI), the book tells how PM Modi and his ”unmatched organizational skills” paved the way for his rise in the party and transformed the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) into ”the election-winning machine it is today”.

”It is naively assumed that his (Modi’s) rise has solely to do with Hindutva plus economic development — often called ‘Moditva’. But this view ignores the methods he deployed to broaden the base of his organization, the BJP, and helped to connect it with more and more people,” writes the author in the book.

”His ways are often old textbook methods, applied with more tenacity and conviction, and even his rivals have started imitating his innovations, albeit unwittingly,” he added.

It reveals the lesser-known contributions of Modi, including his relief work as RSS pracharak during the Gujarat’s Machchhu dam crisis in 1979 — which brought a welcome change in people’s perception towards the organisation — and his instrumental role behind the BJP’s win of the crucial Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) polls in 1987, the very year he joined the saffron party.

Based on extensive interviews with many party workers, leaders and observers, according to the publishers, the book uses in-depth research and concrete examples to explain how the BJP has transformed over the decades.

The foreword of the book is written by American academician Walter Andersen, the co-author of ”The RSS: A View to the Inside” (2018) and ”The Brotherhood in Saffron: The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and Hindu Revivalism” (1987).

”… Unlike so many studies of Modi, this is not a book that relies almost exclusively on news reports and quotes that appear in the press. Nor does it have an agenda aimed primarily at condemning or praising,” he wrote in his description of the book.