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Narendra Damodardas Modi (born September 17, 1950, Gujarat, India) has been the Chief Minister of Gujarat since October 7, 2001.
He was born in Vadnagar, a town in the northern Mehsana district of Gujarat, to a middle-class Hindu family. As a young man, he joined the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. He became a fulltime worker and organiser for it, and was later nominated by it to be a representative on the Bharatiya Janata Party.
He participated in the rise to political dominance of Gujarat by the Bharatiya Janata Party as its elections organiser in the early 1990s, a period which led to its election in 1995. He became Gujarat's Chief Minister in 2001, promoted to that office when his predecessor Keshubhai Patel resigned, following the defeat of the BJP in by-elections.
Though he became a controversial figure in India's English-language media after the 2002 Gujarat violence, he continues to be popular electorally, winning landslide victories in elections to the state legislature. Gujarat made significant economic progress under his administration, winning four international awards for its development-oriented policies.
He was refused an United States diplomatic visa in 2005 because of allegations of his role in the 2002 violence. The US claimed that its decision was influenced by the comments of India's National Human Rights Commission ], which the Indian government, led by Modi's rival Congress Party, termed as "allegations" ]. A judicial Commission expressly constituted to probe allegations of Gujarat state administration's involvement in the riots of 2002 has on two occasions said that there was no evidence "as yet" to implicate either Modi or his administration in the riots ] ]. There is also speculation that the refusal of visa to Modi is the result of intense lobbying by the Christian Right with the Republican administration. ] ]
References
- Narendramodi.org, promotes Modi as a person
- His profile at a Gujarat government website.
- Account of the visa controversy at the BBC.
- Gujarat's progress under Modi's leadership
- US Congressman Joe Pitt's letter seeking the banning of Modi from the United States.