Narendra Modi is casting himself in the Vajpayee mould

India News: It would have been amusing if it weren't such a travesty. Narendra Modi's invocation of former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee as his ''role model" at the BJP's just concluded national convention not only struck a false note, it smacked of blatant opportunism.

The faithful and the committed fell hook, line and sinker for Modi's fulsome praise for Vajpayee's moderation, as is evident from the adulatory res-ponse of his mesmerised audience. But the tension that marked the Vajpayee-Modi relationship in the aftermath of the 2002 Gujarat riots is too well documented for this belated appreciation to be anything more than a hollow ploy to widen his constituency.