NEW DELHI // Indian prime minister Narendra Modi’s party on Monday made public his university degree certificates, in a bid to disprove allegations by a political opponent that he fabricated his qualifications.
Since winning an election in the capital last year, Arvind Kejriwal, the chief minister of the Delhi regional government, has stepped up his attacks on Mr Modi.
Mr Kejriwal has not said why Mr Modi would want to claim a fake degree but the allegations, which set off speculation on social media, struck a nerve in the prime minister’s Hindu nationalist party, upset about the risk to his reputation.
Mr Modi has often cited the journey from his humble beginnings as a tea seller’s son to national leader to win support from the country’s poor. Having a degree fits the narrative of a man with the grit and determination to succeed.
Senior leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) held aloft what they said were Mr Modi’s degrees — a Bachelor of Arts qualification from Delhi University and a Master of Arts in Political Science from Gujarat University, in his home state.
“It is very unfortunate that we have to clarify the prime minister’s educational qualification,” party president Amit Shah said in New Delhi at a BJP event, at which he was flanked by the country’s finance minister Arun Jaitley.
Spokesmen for the two universities declined to comment on whether Mr Modi’s degree certificates were genuine. Mr Kejriwal had claimed he had evidence the prime minister misappropriated the degrees of someone with the same name.
A spokesman for Mr Kejriwal’s party stood by the accusations, and said there were inconsistencies in the dates and names on Mr Modi’s degrees.
“We are happy to have an illiterate prime minister,” said the spokesman, Vikas Yogi. “But not a prime minister who lies about his degrees.”
Mr Modi’s party distributed copies of the certificates to the media.
“The degrees are in the public domain, but such allegations debase our political discourse,” said Mr Shah.
Mr Kejriwal, an anti-graft politician, has been at loggerheads with the BJP since last year.
In December he accused Mr Jaitley of allowing fraud at a cricket association he ran for a decade from 2003.
Mr Jaitley denied wrongdoing and sued Mr Kejriwal for 100 million rupees (Dh5.5m) for slander.
* Reuters
