NEW DELHI: In a rare up close and personal social media encounter on Friday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi asked women to get ready to lead the nation saying 33 per cent reservation for them in the Lok Sabha and state assemblies was coming in “very near future”.
Modi was speaking in his podcast debut with investor Nikhil Kamath in his “People with WTF” show where he opened up about his anxieties, failures, setbacks, strengths and personality.
At one point, Modi said he was not God and had made mistakes but never with an ill-intention. “I am a human being and mistakes happen but I will never do anything wrong with an ill-intention,” the PM said, describing adversity as his university; nation-first as his ideology and ability to learn from failures as his strength.
Modi revealed that he was surprised when he became the Chief Minister of Gujarat. “This was not the path I chose for myself. The background I come from, my mother would have distributed sweets had I become a primary school teacher. I never set out to reach here. I have not crafted my destiny…,” he said, mentioning among regrets two life events — when as a child he was unable to study in the Gujarat Sainik School and later as a youngster when he was found ineligible to become a monk in Ramakrishna Mission.
I have suffered multiple setbacks,” said Modi, 74, who ended up joining the RSS. Describing himself as “unfit for comfort”, a “luxury”, he said, “some had plenty”, Modi said he would not know how to order from a menu and admitted that it was with late Cabinet colleague Arun Jaitley that he last visited a restaurant.
To questions about his politics, the Prime Minister spoke of the need to take risks to succeed and signalled the implementation of 33 per cent reservation for women in the Lok Sabha and state assemblies by the 2029 LS poll.
“Women have to lead the society and men. So they must hone their leadership qualities because in the very near future 33% MLA and MP reservation is coming and we will need a lot of women leaders. There are still three to four years left. They must understand this is their time,” said the PM, adding that the country also needs feeling, problem-solving youth and not those who keep showing others down.
About himself, he quipped, “My risk-taking capacity has not been utilised fully yet,” adding that he has been conscious that as CM and later PM he has to overcome emotions. In this context, Modi spoke of the February 27, 2002 Sabarmati Express burning incident in Godhra where, he said, he controlled his emotions despite the sight of heaps of bodies. The PM was responding to a query on whether he had his anxious moments.
He also acknowledged that as head of the Gujarat Government (though not at a personal level), he was concerned about the 2005 US decision to decline his visa.