1. Modi is today seen as a clean, efficient and no-nonsense administrator, an image that has been cultivated by sending messages to the right kind of audience. Business tycoons see him as a political enforcer who can deliver business opportunity without expensive social unrest. His model is one of ‘decentralisation of planning and empowering people’.
2. Modi has built a reputation as an incorruptible and efficient technocrat who has electrified Gujarat's 18,000 villages - the state is the only one in India with a near 24/7 power supply - and slashed red tape to attract companies like Ford, Maruti Suzuki and Tata Motors.
3. During Modi's 10 years as Chief Minister, Gujarat has grown an average of 10% a year. The state ranked fifth out of 15 big states in 2010-2011 in terms of per capita income. The CM boasts it is the "engine of India's economic growth."
4. Modi has nonetheless one achievement which should persuade the voters to treat him with a measure of respect. He is the only chief minister in the country who has not allowed the mischief-making Naxalites to create a niche for themselves within his state, and this despite Gujarat having a substantially large tribal population.
5. Gujarat’s success, even Modi's detractors acknowledge, is a result of good planning -- exactly what so much of India lacks. The BJP has no real choice but to bite the Modi bullet. The saffron party’s natural supporters are enthused by Modi in the same way as they were by the Ayodhya issue in 1991 and by Atal Bihari Vajpayee's leadership in 1998 and 1999.