India News: It would have been amusing if it weren't such a travesty. Narendra Modi's invocation of former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee as his ''role model" at the BJP's just concluded national convention not only struck a false note, it smacked of blatant opportunism.<br /><br />The faithful and the committed fell hook, line and sinker for Modi's fulsome praise for Vajpayee's moderation, as is evident from the adulatory res-ponse of his mesmerised audience. But the tension that marked the Vajpayee-Modi relationship in the aftermath of the 2002 Gujarat riots is too well documented for this belated appreciation to be anything more than a hollow ploy to widen his constituency.
