Phenomenal change in Indian politics, Modi will rule for years to come: Ram Madhav

Crediting Prime Minister Narendra Modi and party president Amit Shah for leading the BJP to a grand victory in the recently held Lok Sabha polls, Ram Madhav on Saturday said the two leaders had brought a phenomenal and qualitative change in Indian politics where voters exercise their franchise on the basis of government's performance rather than on caste and other divisive lines.

"A qualitative change has come in Indian politics where people are voting rising above the divisive factors in politics. The performance of the government is the uniting factor," said Madhav, also a BJP general secretary, at a book release event here.

"We have also become an expert in the number game. We have become so that that we form a government without contesting elections," he added in a lighter vein.

"The entire election was centred around Modi ji, who is the most popular leader. A big change has occurred in global politics and an era of strong leadership is there in the entire world. If the leader is weak, then the government will fall in 4-6 months only," said Madhav.

He said that Narendra Modi is a "strong and authoritative" leader, who is there to rein for the years to come.

"Democracies are transforming with time for strong and authoritative leadership. If opposition understands this, they know when their turn will come. The strong and authoritative leader will stay for long to rule the country. BJP has that leadership in Narendra Modi," said Madhav.

He also slammed those who 'criticise' Amit Shah for making BJP an "election-winning" machine, by saying that the party is not there for charity but for winning elections.

"Critics comment that Amit Shah has made the BJP an election-winning machine. Are we here for doing charity? We are here for winning elections," he said.

"Earlier it was a precedent in politics that winning elections is a matter that is to be considered at the time of elections but Amit Shah has prepared the party in such a manner and has kept it in such a mode that it is ready to face elections anytime," he said.

Drawing parallels with the elections in America, he said the BJP has developed the mechanism to reach directly to the voters, somewhat similar to that developed by former American President Barack Obama, and it has paid dividends to the party in the elections.

"The experiment Obama did with the American elections by creating an electoral mechanism to reach out to the voters directly has come to India. Now you can reach out to voters directly, and if you have the capacity to reach out to them, nobody can stop you. Amit Shah formed a strategy to 23 crore beneficiaries of government schemes at the booth level, thus directly reaching to the voters," said Shah.

Further, he said that Prime Minister Modi is the leader whose popularity graph has increased and has beaten the "anti-incumbency" factor against the established trend in politics. "His popularity graph has increased after 5 years of rule," said Madhav.