A day after BJP's prime ministerial nominee Narendra Modi declared in his poll affidavit filed in Vadodara that he was a married man and that his wife's name is Jashodaben, his elder brother Sombhai Modi issued a statement here on Thursday to explain that the marriage was forced on a teenaged Narendra.
Sombhai said the marriage was forced on Modi by his parents when he was a teenager in keeping with the old orthodox tradition of fixing marriages between children and that it was never consummated as Modi walked out of the marriage soon after it was solemnised.
Dwelling on the reasons of the Gujarat Chief Minister's act, Sombhai said a young Modi did it in response to an inner call to work for the nation and the society inspired by the teachings of Swami Vivekanand.
In his press statement Sombhai, who runs a home for the old-aged and lives a simple life with his family in Ahmedabad, appealed to the people to see the marriage in the backdrop of these facts.
Modi, who has ruled Gujarat since 2001, has left the field for "spouse" blank in four Assembly polls. Of late, he has also flaunted his single status at rallies, saying that he was single and had no one to be corrupt for.
Modi ended the speculation over his marital status after a long period of silence, perhaps because the Congress had run a smear campaign against him in the last Vidhan Sabha elections and even after that by projecting Jashodaben, a retired teacher living in a north Gujarat village along with her brother, as a spurned wife and a victim of Modi's exploitation.
Modi's declaration of his marital status is aimed at pre-empting such a campaign and also any attempt to drag him to the Election Commission on the issue.
Since 1992, when Gujarati weekly Abhiyan carried for the first time a story on Modi's marriage, Jashodaben and her family have refrained from talking to media, calling it a personal affair, and wishing Modi good luck in his endeavours.
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