Did Abdul Kalam Say Opposition ‘Will Fear PM Modi’ For His Work?
A post claiming Abdul Kalam had told PM Modi that Opposition will ‘fear’ him for his work one day has gone viral.
THE CLAIM
A Facebook post purported as a direct quote from an interaction between former President of India APJ Abdul Kalam and Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been doing the rounds.
The post, shared by the Facebook page ग्रेट नरेन्द्र मोदी (Great Narendra Modi), claims that Kalam had told Modi that the Opposition will ‘fear’ the BJP leader for his work one day and will subsequently fall as a result.
It was shared alongside an image of Kalam and Modi. The post had acquired a total social media interaction of close to 1,000 and had been shared 410 times at the time of writing this piece.
THE TRUTH
While it is true that Kalam had praised Modi on some occasions, the most famous such mention being after his trip to Gujarat in 2012, we could not find any such comment (as claimed by the post) in public record.
A search through his speeches and a search through news reports about his comments on Narendra Modi also did not find any mention of this specific comment.
A reverse image search of the image from the post revealed that it was from the 2015 Republic Day celebrations in New Delhi.
News reports of around the said Republic Day celebrations also did not yield any mentions to such a comment.
The Quint reached out to Srijan Pal Singh, an Indian author and known aide of Dr Kalam, to confirm the veracity of the claim.
Singh said that while it is true that Kalam often spoke highly of Modi, whilst he was the Chief Minister of Gujarat, he could not have made such a comment.
“Kalam did hold a high regard for Modi and had even written about it in a book he co-authored with me. But, the former president was not known to ever make such negative comments. Thus, the post is inaccurate,” he said.
KALAM’s ‘COMPLIMENTARY OBSERVATIONS’ ON MODI
The search results, however, did yield a news report about BJP veteran leader LK Advani expressing his anger at the media for “ignoring what he termed as ‘complimentary observations’ made by Kalam on Modi’s ‘enthusiastic’ cooperation to him when he had travelled to Gujarat for a first-hand assessment of the post-riot situation in 2002.”
Kalam, in his book, had written: “Many apprehensions were expressed, among them that my visit might be boycotted by the chief minister, that I would receive a cold reception and that there would be agitations from many sides. But, to my great surprise when I landed at Gandhinagar, not only the chief minister, but his whole Cabinet colleagues and a large number of legislative members and administrators including the public were present at the airport. I visited twelve areas — three relief camps and nine riot-hit locations where losses were high. Narendra Modi, the chief minister, was with me throughout the visit. In one way, this helped me, wherever I went, the type of petitions and complaints and as he was with me I was able to suggest to him that actions be taken as quickly as possible.”
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