Note: This story was first inserted on 23-03-2011

WikiLeaks Cables from American envoy show he wanted to woo Modi unofficially after US denied him a visa

Narendra Modi and the BJP today made the most of the latest diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks, saying these showed that the Gujarat Chief Minister was "incorruptible"  in fact, "the lone honest Indian politician".

Dated November 2, 2006, the cable sent by Michael S Owen, the Consul General in Mumbai, refers to Modi's growing potential as a national leader of his party and the need to engage with him to "directly" deliver a message on human rights.

In an appraisal of the CM, Owen adds: "Modi has successfully branded himself as a non-corrupt, effective administrator, as a facilitator of business in a state with a deep commercial culture, and as a no-nonsense, law-and-order politician who looks after the interests of the Hindu majority."

After a lecture at Pandit Deen Dayal Univerisity at Gandhinagar on Tuesday, Modi said the cable acknowledges him as "incorruptible" and refers to Gujarat as "a progressive state". "There are many non-corrupt people, but they have termed me incorruptible, which is good for the people of Gujarat. WikiLeaks shows two faces  that of the government of India and another of progressive Gujarat."

In a press release, the BJP said the US documents only assert and prove that Modi is the lone politician in India to be honest, fearless and clean. Said BJP national vice-president Purushottam Rupala and state party spokesperson I K Jadeja: "The government which has denied Modi as Modi now finds him as one with strong political willpower, an able administrator as well as the only non-corrupt, no-nonsense politician of India."

The BJP rubbed in the fact that the same US government had denied Modi a visa after the 2002 riots, and said America seemed to be "in a mood to repent".

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