Indian expatriates in Jeddah have expressed dismay at the nomination of Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) as the Hindu nationalist party’s prime ministerial candidate for the 2014 elections.

Nasir Rashid, a salesman, said: “Dilli dur ast –- Delhi is far. He has only become a party nominee. That too, not unanimously. He could not carry his own party with him, how will he carry a nation of nearly a billion people with a myriad of problems and issues? There is rancor in the party as well as the country as a whole.”

Samad Shaheen, an engineer, said Modi may not have dreamed of wanting to be prime minister, but the BJP wants him to be, and given his record on the communal front, he will have not just a hard, but a nightmarish time.

Muhammad Tehqique, an industrial executive, said that nothing can be predicted. “All one can do is wait and watch. The youth seem to be supporting him, in the hope of a better tomorrow for them — job-wise and growth-wise. But the BJP itself is divided. One of their senior leaders, L.K. Advani, did not attend the meeting that announced Modi’s candidature. On the face of it, Modi does not seem to be supported by regional parties. Anyway, he will prove to be a formidable opponent for the Congress,” he said.

Praveen Shah, an accountant, said, if Modi can rise above communal politics, he can bring the nation out of the rut that it has been mired in for so long. “People want, what have so far remained mere promises — roti, kapda and makan (food, clothes and shelter). If he can provide these basic needs satisfactorily, people will rally around him forgetting caste, creed, community and religion, because the common man wants to live in peace,” he said.

“Modi is a shameless and a heartless person,” said a 60-year-old housewife. “How can he ever forget the atrocities, brutalities, murders and mayhem that took place under his reign in Gujarat in 2002? He never had the courtesy to say sorry. A person without piety can hardly be a good leader of a nation. A nation is one big family. Can such a person really understand that and act like a well-behaved member? I doubt it. The era of peaceful politics that I and my parents knew is over.”