By our correspondent, New Delhi, 8 April 2013

Chief Minister Narendra Modi again charmed the nation. Modi was addressing a different type of audience this time. It was a FICCI Ladies Organization function attended by rich business women of Delhi. The event was earlier organized at FICCI office, but due to heavy rush, the venue had to be changed and the event was shifted to Meridian hotel.

Modi started his speech by saying that he likes to receive suggestions, remarks( even critical in nature), questions, queries on his Twitter and Facebook accounts. Modi said he listens, and takes note of such feedback.

Modi talked about the supreme position of ‘maa’ in Indian culture. People compare Ganga, Cow, Country with ‘maa’. Such is the importance of ‘maa’.

Then came a deeper emotional part of speech. Modi spoke in detail about female foeticide. He said that in 18th century, girl child was killed after her birth, but today the things are even worse and girls are killed in mother’s womb itself.

Modi took this five-star gathering to completely new level. When he was talking about female foeticide, there was a pin drop silence at the venue, and emotional cords were touched.

Modi then only came to the examples part of his speech. Attached with the subject of his speech, he started giving number of examples of his achievements and experiences in Gujarat. They are described here.

After the speech it was a time for question answer session. Modi was asked about his weakness. Modi heard it as business. Later it was clarified and he replied that every person has some weakness. A bad person has some good points, a good person has some bad points. A person who leaves his bad points behind and continues to connect with good points and goes ahead is called good person. Then Modi said that a person can’t evaluate his good or bad points on his own. He asked women to point out his weaknesses to him through social media.

In reply to other question Modi said the task of building bhavya and divya Gujarat is yet to be completed, so far his govt has only neutralized the gaps that were left by earlier Congress governments in Gujarat. Modi’s remark on Congress attracted longest applause.

Replying to a question on handicraft, Modi spoke about need for value edition, technology upgradation and market access. He gave example of Rann Utsav where government provides connection between handicraft artists and tourists.

When a gentleman stood up to ask question, Modi asked him to sit down and give only woman change to ask the question.

Replying a question on women’s reservation, Modi said that in Gujarat, the government had passed a bill for giving 50% reservation to women, but Governor who herself is a women refused to sign the bill!

After the event was over, India’s almost all national news channels started live discussion of expert panels on Modi’s speech. Some channels also started interviewing the women who attended FICCI FLO function. Most of the women, barring one or two were impressed. Zee News, Aaj Tak, NewsX were some of the channels who relayed such interviews. When asked who was their choice – Rahul Gandhi or Narendra Modi – all women replied that they would choose Narendra Modi for his experience rather than Rahul Gandhi who would take a long time to reach the level of Shri Modi.

On Times Now, BJP spokesperson Meenakshi Lekhi who attended the event was speaking in her firebrand style like a man, while Congress leader arguing with Lekhi was looking like a woman.

Congress leader Shaktisinh Gohil, on one of the channels was repeatedly calling Modi a liar for his remark that Governor was not signing the bill for women’s reservation. Gohil said that Modi had clubbed women’s reservation bill with compulsory voting bill. He said, Governor had asked Modi government to separate two bills, as she desired to sign the bill for women’s reservation but was not desired to approve the bill for compulsory voting. But Modi government refused to separate the bills.

Journos then asked questions to Congress men like Rajiv Shukla and Janardan Dwivedi. While Rajiv Shukla is always available for his byte to TV media, Dwivedi was actually briefing media on allegations against Rajiv Gandhi by Wikileaks published in The Hindu newspaper. Dwivedi initially said that journos should ask questions on Modi’s speech to Gujarat Congress unit, as Modi is not declared PM candidate by his own party yet. When asked specifically on Modi’s remark on Congress, Dwivedi said that someone would also fill the pit Modi has dug.