"Convinced God sent me, my energy not biological": now Modi the messiah

Asked by a TV anchor the secret of his Energizer Bunny ways, prime minister Narendra Modi yesterday, 21 May, claimed quasi-messianic qualities for himself.

This "oorja (energy)", he claims, could not be of the regular biological sort; it had to be a divine gift so that godhead might work through him, the prime minister announced.

It was only as long as his mother was alive, Modi said, that he was misled into thinking himself a regular biological being of flesh and blood. With her departure for presumably her own heavenly abode, he seems to have lost that veil of maya, that illusion, and arrived at the Buddha-like state of enlightenment — he is now "convinced" of his truly divine origin, true divine purpose.

That purpose? At least in part, per the same TV channel — News 18 India (Hindi) — is a survey of Muslims to confirm their happiness in Ram Rajya.

As for all the noise from the Opposition, "Where have I said Muslims have more children? All poor people have more children," said Modi the Messiah.

Curiously, in saying this, he seemed to echo pretty much what Mallikarjun Kharge, the Congress president, had to say on this subject. Perhaps, then, Kharge is a lesser prophet/avatar, a precursor or a bodhisattva as it were?

Some netizens ventured to suggest some other 'purposes' for this extra energy:

Meanwhile, Modi's Uttar Pradesh colleague, chief minister Yogi Adityanath harped on the same theme but sang a slightly different tune — this one more invective than ode to self, featuring a little less narcissism and a lot more fearmongering.

Popular X handle Hate Detector took the trouble to strip away some of the embroidery and reduce Adityanath's 21 May campaign speech in Uttar Pradesh's Azamgarh to its bare essentials:

• The Congress will first of all do away with OBC and SC/ST reservations and give those benefits to Muslims instead.

• The opposition's wealth survey will end in them taking half your wealth and giving it to the Muslims — not of India, note, but of Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan (this is illustrated with an example: should you be the fortunate owner of a four-bedroom house, 'they' will confiscate two bedrooms and give them to a Bangladeshi or a Pakistani)

• Aurangzeb broke only two temples: Kashi and Mathura...

• In sum: "Your lives will be ruined."