Having sold his idea of India to the youth at the recent address at Delhi’s Shri Ram College of Commerce in January and the model of Gujarat development in his victory speech after winning a third term late last year, among others, Narendra Modi showed the Modi mantra at the FICCI Ladies’ Organisation (FLO) to woo a key constituency in women, who form nearly half the electorate.

Unlike Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi, who spoke at the other big industry chamber, the Confederation of Indian Industry, on Friday, the Gujarat chief minister did not fight shy of taking on his rivals with gentle pokes and puns. He made little effort to hide the fact seen by all — that it was a political speech ahead of the general elections next year — and a fact Gandhi tried with all his might to brush under the carpet in his effort to play a generalised, statesmanlike inning.

And on all these fronts, Modi, the rockstar of spin and the master of metaphor, came out trumps.

Casual in his approach, confident in his posture and body language, and backed by a decade of development from which he can cull out instances for every issue, Modi said the Gujarat model was successful at its core primarily due to one reason: the administration’s efforts to empower and include women in the economy.

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Here are five reasons why Narendra Modi at FICCI outscored Rahul Gandhi at CII:
 
1. Emotional appeal in Mother India over beehive:

With the option of a studied second look at his pan-India theme, Modi played to the gallery at the FICCI event. While Gandhi’s “India is not an elephant, it’s a beehive” observation made it to the jokes section on social media, and cartoons section on print, and has the chance of making it to the gallery of faux pas in times to come, Modi pitched for the emotional Mother India. And he set the tone at the outset itself. Stressing that “ma” is the most important element in Indian culture and tradition, he said if you respect the Ganga or India, you call them your mother.

Seen against that, Gandhi’s metaphor of a beehive seems a bit of a joke.

Taking the high moral ground at a time when the protests and demonstrations against sex crimes are still fresh in our mind, Modi said, “Sometimes, I feel we are worse off in our treatment of women than in the 18th century.” And showing his concern about the rising cases of female infanticide, he said the time has come to break the gender barrier.
 
2. Focus, focus, focus:

While Gandhi’s speech was all about showing his version of discovery of India — a bit rambling, a bit bumbling and involving a lot of heart but little head — Modi kept to the topic: unleash the entrepreneur within; exploring new avenues, with a special focus on women since the event was organised by the industry body’s ladies organisation.

Taking instances of success from his own governance, Modi brought down women’s empowerment to primarily three issues at the heart of it:

a) “The first rule of entrepreneurship is empowerment”, he said.

What Gujarat has done: realising empowering women is the key to scale up entrepreneurial skill, he said the state government waived off stamp duty for property registered in the name of women. Though it made a dent in the exchequer, Modi claimed it resulted in lakhs of property being registered in the name of women.

b) Connect women with development.

What Gujarat has done: realising the latent potential of women in steering the village economic boat after a group of women came up to him to run their villages, the state government gave special status to villages that elect all-women panchayats. As a result, over 300 villages now enjoy this status, and are much well off.

c) Economic power ushers in equality in decision making.

What Gujarat has done: Made it compulsory for the mother’s name to be jot down first while enrolling a child in school.
 
3. Specifics, specifics, specifics:

Unlike Gandhi, Modi appeared to know exactly what he wanted to say. So, rather than sending out ambiguous signals about entrepreneurial skills of young Indians (sipping chai at Mumbai chawl at the crack of dawn and discussing dreams and dynamics with migrant labourers from Uttar Pradesh on a Mumbai-bound train), the Gujarat CM zeroed in on success stories achieved amid strife and struggle. You got nothing to fish for a better part of the year? Hello, says the Gujarat government, and you can start business of sea weed. You got little to farm? Say it with flowers, and fill the coffers, says the Gujarat government.

Similarly, the Amul revolution, the Lijjat papad evolution and Jasuben’s pizzas might not have anything to do with his administration, but everyone loves a success story, especially of the little man, or in this case the woman — and not ambiguous words on what is to be done, a la Lenin.
 
4. Master of spin:

Asked two questions on water disputes and the centre-state relations, the Amethi MP went on for about half an hour, answering neither. Asked five, Modi made it known that he certainly has weaknesses but intends to focus on his strengths to undo the potholes left by his “friends in Congress” to make a level-playing field. And if the people are so happy with only the act of pothole-filling, he can only wonder what their reaction would be when the real rebuilding of Gujarat starts. If you want, you can read a bit of 2002 in the opening remark (the question related to his weaknesses), you can also read the nonchalance and confidence of a man ready to take on a bigger swathe in the second (question related to Gujarat’s development).

And besides pointing out that the Gujarat governor, a woman to boot (mentioned), and a Congresswoman as a further aside who has had a few brushes with his administration (not mentioned but implied), has put the brakes on the women’s bill in the state, Modi used the last five minutes or so to include another constituency — the poor, and the farmers — after answering the last one. He needn’t have done that, but then he needed to, too.
 
5. A jab, a gibe, a sting and a bite:

Unlike Gandhi, whose attempt to take the statesmanlike posture did not let him take more than a job or two at the opposition, Modi is never short of putting in a snide remark about the Congress, or the Gandhi family. Having wound up his theses on how Jasuben’s pizza has outdone Pizza Hut in Ahmedabad, he said since the media’s kneejerk reaction would be to go to Ahmedabad and find out whether Jasuben is like Gandhi’s (fictitious?) Kalavati, it would be apt to mention here that the entrepreneur died five years back.

People love people who know how to pack a punch and then sneak it in stealthily — like Muhammad Ali (float like a butterfly, sting like a bee).