India needs benevolent dictator: Actor Paresh Rawal

Ahmedabad: Actor Paresh Rawal, making his political debut from Ahmedabad East Lok Sabha constituency on Narendra Modi’s personal request, said in an interview to this newspaper that a “benevolent dictatorship” is “what India needs”.

“When Sanjay Gandhi brought in Emergency, trains and buses ran on time. And people said: “Chalo, gadiyan time pe aati hain. Meaning, work is happening, people are doing their job, no one is sitting on files. The way Modiji rules, he is not a dictator, he takes everybody along. But Modiji ki files won’t go to another, like Manmohanji’s files goes to another. Modiji ke yahan centre of power ek hi hai. He has dum, but he has to head a majority government, otherwise these same people will be shouting and screaming “he’s a dictator, he’s a dictator”.

Main toh bolta hoon ki benevolent dictator chahiye. (I saw we need a benevolent dictator) That’s the best combo. We need a benevolent dictator, one who is well-meaning, thinks about people, their welfare, one who understands.

Partly because of the Gujarat success story, the Congress’ failure and Narendra Modi’s personality, Mr Rawal said that expectations are running very high. And that is why, things will have to be Mr Modi’s way, or he’ll take the highway. If the results throw up a coalition, Mr Rawal said Mr Modi will not head a government that’ll be pulled in various directions by various leaders.

“This man is the sort that if he can’t do work, he will leave. And if he gets work done, he’ll get it done only his way.”

And things, Mr Rawal assured, will get done fast, phat se. While giving examples of unpopular but eventually beneficial decision that Mr Modi has taken in Gujarat, Mr Rawal said that he hopes Mr Modi will demolish votebank politics by removing reservations: “If you keep on appeasing one community, the others think, why not me? Yeh karte-karte minority ke kitne section aane lage hain. Har aadmi ko quota chahiye, toh merit wala aadmi kahan jayega? Samundar mein kudega kya? I have seen so many cases in Mumbai where parents have struggled hard, the son has got 95 per cent, and yet he hasn’t got admission into a medical college. Jo doosra banda hai, for some reasons he gets into medicine. Yeh kya pagalpan hai?”