this story originally appeared in on aug 28 2014the new pm is markedly different from his predecessors in his choices and communication et examines what makes him stand out the person prime minister narendra modi seems to personify that old aphorism about the personal being political every personal choice of his is actually a public statement theres nothing about him that can be deemed purely personal atal bihari vajpayee was also a bachelorpracharak of the rashtriya swayamsevak sangh rss but when he became prime minister he chose friend and former diplomat brajesh mishra as his national security advisor nsa and principal secretary mishra it will be recalled was the son of a former congress chief minister of madhya pradesh also vajpayee lived with a family that he adopted and his soninlaw more or less managed his office informally at 7 race course road but modis choices are dictated by politics precedence and policy his nsa and principal secretary come from the vivekananda international foundation vif a think tank perceived to be close to the rss ak doval the former intelligence bureau chief worked closely with modis onetime mentor and bjp patriarch lk advani when the latter was home minister it would seem then that shared commitment to ideology not personal bonding brought modi and doval together similarly nripendra mishra modis principal secretary was working with doval at vif after 100 days in delhi nobody his cabinet colleagues his extended political parivar his babus can claim any amount of familiarity with the new prime minister at his independence day address the prime minister called himself an outsider this assertion of identity of being an outsider is a marked departure from the past on the other hand modi has taken control of the levers of power there are no daughters sons or sonsinlaw who could become extraconstitutional authorities there are no schoolmates backslapping college pals special interests assorted hangers on in fact no one who can bind him to an agenda modi the person is as free in this respect as a modernday prime minister can ever hope to be and perhaps frighteningly so he has kept his family away from 7 rcr and even his ideological family is not to be seen anywhere around him a set of bureaucrats has travelled with him from ahmedabad to delhi but again they are not friends or family they may not even be his partners in his political project but instruments to get his ideas implemented modi the person is remarkably alone at the top of his government finance minister arun jaitley carries the burden of an additional ministry and a lot of weight in the cabinet but till modi goes on vacation to the kumarakom backwaters in kerala or the mountain retreats of himachal as vajpayee so famously did nobody really knows who stands where in his scheme of thingsmodi addresses the nation on independence dayperception management politics is all about what people think about you