Lok Sabha elections 2019- ‘Being PM seems unnatural’: PM Modi
He also gave a peek into his friendship with former US President Barack Obama. “When President Obama and I met, he expressed concern about my sleeping pattern. He asked me why I sleep so less.”
Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in an interview with actor Akshay Kumar broadcast on Wednesday that he had never thought of becoming PM when he was young because he didn’t have the kind of background befitting the highest executive office of the land.
He belonged to the kind of family in which his mother would have “distributed jaggery in the neighbourhood if I had got a good job,” the 68-year-old PM said in the hour-long interview distributed by ANI news agency.
Being prime minister now seems “very unnatural because my background does not go with current politics,” Modi, who took time off from a hectic election campaign to talk to Kumar, said in the interview aired after the third phase of the Lok Sabha polls staggered over seven phases.
The election has been bitterly fought, with both the ruling BJP and the Opposition accusing of each other violating the model code of conduct. The Opposition has charged Modi with trying to politicise the armed forces by making references in the campaign to the February 14 Pulwama terror attack and the February 26 air strikes on a terrorist camp in Balakot, Pakistan.
In the interview conducted at his official residence, 7, Lok Kalyan Marg, and away from the campaign trail, Modi appeared to be relaxed and at ease.
Akshay Kumar had billed it as a candid and completely non-political conversation in a promo. Modi told Kumar he was not attached to anyone in his family but his mother, noting that he had left home at a young age and lived apart.“If I had left my home after becoming Prime Minister then I could have missed my family. But I left my home at a very young age and was never very attached to my family,” he said. “I called my mother here, to spend some time with her, but I was not able to do that due to my hectic schedule. .,” he added.
Modi offered glimpses into the kind of relationship he shares with Opposition leaders, including West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee. He said the Trinamool Congress chief sends him kurtas and Bengali sweets “once or twice” in a year.Banerjee has been one of Modi’s strongest critics on the campaign trail.
He also gave a peek into his friendship with former US President Barack Obama. “When President Obama and I met, he expressed concern about my sleeping pattern. He asked me why I sleep so less.”
Taking a swipe at the interview, the Congress said it seemed a “failed politician” who is about to be rejected by the people was looking for an alternative employment avenue in Bollywood. “It seems a failed politician who is about to be rejected on May 23, 2019 (election counting day), is looking for an alternative employment avenue in Bollywood...,” Congress spokesperson Randeep Surjewala told reporters.