Modi has to go beyond 'Gujarat champion' identity: Harish Khare

His new book, ‘How Modi Won It: Notes From the 2014 Election’, is a masterful personal account, laced with diary notes from the months leading up to elections, and insightful analysis of where the Congress slipped and Modi succeeded.

Harish Khare, former media advisor to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh between 2009 and 2012, is a distinguished senior journalist and commentator. His new book, ‘How Modi Won It: Notes From the 2014 Election’, is a masterful personal account, laced with diary notes from the months leading up to elections, and insightful analysis of where the Congress slipped and Modi succeeded. In an exclusive interview, Khare speaks to HT about the book and Indian politics.

Harish Khare with former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. (HT file photo)

What made you write this book?
I think I was very disturbed by the fact that the media had become so biased, or had given into what are legitimate devices on the part of any candidate to manipulate the media discourse in his favour. Media had abandoned that obligation to be fair and objective in its reporting. I started feeling that there was something unwholesome about the whole thing. The book began as notes to see how that process was working out. The strength of the book is that the diary entries (during the campaign) capture,--though only partly,-- the fine and nuanced hijacking of the discourse by the Narendra Modi campaign.

Read the full interview here.