Modi now template for what it means to be national leader: Shah

New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi is now the template for what it means and takes to be a "national leader," Home Minister Amit Shah has said, asserting that the label was earlier handed out to even politicians of no proven merit and only capable of winning election from one or two safe Lok Sabha seats.

While national leaders were identified in the immediate aftermath of the independence movement by their "name recall" across regions because of their participation in the freedom struggle, in the latter decades, the expression came to be much abused, he said, adding that Delhi media generously distributed the status to its "friends and favourites."

Writing in the book "Modi@20 Dreams Meet Delivery," brought out by Rupa Publications and to be launched on May 11, Shah said, "Such facile and insincere manufacturing of national leaders" was shown up for what it was after Modi led the BJP to its biggest Lok Sabha win in 2014 before repeating the feat with a bigger margin in 2019.

A confidant of the prime minister for over three decades, Shah wrote that the best teacher for a leader is travelling to ordinary places, meeting ordinary families and sharing ordinary experiences. Narendra Modi has done so much with greater frequency and perseverance than any politician in the past 75 years, he said.