Meet Modi's mentor, who scripted the first chapter of the 'Chaiwala to PM' story

When you first meet Ambalal Koshti, he comes across as just another elderly man who has seen his share of ups and downs in life. Koshti is as unassuming as the next person and certainly conducts himself in a manner befitting that image. And yet, this inconspicuous senior citizen can claim credit for the deeds of India's most visible man.

What Koshti is known for, especially within the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), is finding a an 18-year-old Narendra Modi at tea stall and bringing him into the RSS to work and further himself. As fate would have it, the youth that Ambalal had brought into the RSS shakha at Maninagar in Ahmedabad would go on to become a three-time chief minister of Gujarat and an iconic Prime Minister of India.

Now 70 years old, Ambalal still works at the state headquarters of the BJP in Ahmedabad. Members of the party know who he is and what he has given them but the man himself is an epitome of modesty, considering the magnitude of his contribution. Having spotted Modi when the dynamic leader was nothing but a teenager from an underprivileged background, he now reminisces about the good old days and recalls how Modi had always been a disciplined and strong-willed man.

It was 1968 when Ambalal met Modi for the first time while protesting against an increase in state transport fares. The young boy in front of him seemed an ideal candidate for the Jan Sangh, which was the political arm of the RSS back then. Ambalal was the party’s general secretary in charge of the Kankaria ward in the city and it was his job to find young and promising recruits for the Jan Sangh.

Modi, who did not have a home in the city and spent his days and nights at the state transport canteen, seemed to be taken with the idea of joining the Jan Sangh, but took his time to actually arrive at the decision of doing so. Once the decision was made, Ambalal took him to the Maninagar shakha of the RSS and he started living and working there from then on. The two spent many a day riding on bicycles and dutifully carrying out the work of the RSS in the city and the state.

To keep him interested and motivated, and probably to stop him from being poached by rival parties, Ambalal reportedly handed over the Kankaria ward general secretary post to Modi, who later happened to win his memorable first assembly election from the constituency in 2002. He recalls that Modi the boy, not unlike Modi the man, did not suffer people who displayed a lack of discipline, something that is a hallmark of his governance even today.

Speaking about Modi’s nature, Ambalal said his ward had a terrific memory and that he would never forget the first name of a person he met, a quality that he continues exhibiting to this day. He also said the leader was never one to use foul language and even now, whenever he is forced to retaliate to someone else’s jibes, he is very careful about the language he uses.

When asked whether he had the slightest intuition back then that Modi would become Prime Minister one day, Ambalal said that to begin with, none of them thought that the Jan Sangh – now BJP – would be the powerhouse it is today. “We never thought Jan Sangh, which later became BJP, will become the largest in India. This happened because of the hard work of party workers,” he said.