As the campaigning officially ended for the Indian election, prime minister Narendra Modi called his first-ever press conference in a last-ditch clarion call to voters on Friday – and failed to answer a single question.
Indian TV channels carried simultaneous press conferences from Mr Modi and the leader of the opposition Congress Party, Rahul Gandhi, as both called on the Indian public to vote for their respective parties.
Awaiting the inaugural question-and-answer session from the PM, who has not held a single one in five years as leader, journalists and the public were surprised as Mr Modi deflected every single question to the president of his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Amit Shah.
Talking to the assembled media, Mr Modi said he was confident the BJP would win the vote, saying: "It has not happened often in our country that a government with full majority returns once again with a majority."
But once the questions began, Mr Shah took every single one.
Mr Modi has been repeatedly criticised for not addressing a single press conference during his tenure.
He responded to the very first question saying: "I am a disciplined soldier, the party president is everything for me."
Indian elections 2019 – Projected vote share
Mr Shah, to another question, said: "I have answered your question. It is not necessary for the PM to answer every question."
The BJP called the press conference after it had heard that Mr Gandhi would be addressing the media, according to sources.
But exactly why Mr Modi called it and then refused to answer questions was unclear.
Krishan Partap Singh, an author, tweeted: “Have we got it all wrong for five years? Is it possible Modi is the puppet and Amit Shah the puppet master? Sure looks like it at this presser!”
During the press conference, Mr Shah claimed the BJP would win 300 seats in the Indian parliament – which would be 18 more than it won last time, when it secured the first outright majority in decades.
Indian elections 2019 – Projected seat share
Mr Shah also said 80 of his party workers had been killed in campaign related violence in the last 18 months, and he defended a BJP candidate who had claimed that the man who assassinated Mahatma Gandhi was a “patriot”.
Opposition leader Mr Gandhi tweeted afterwards: “Excellent press conference! Showing up is half the battle. Next time Mr Shah may even allow you to answer a couple of questions. Well done!”
Mr Gandhi has repeatedly asked Mr Modi to face him in a live debate, which the prime minister declined.
Pundits speculated that the press conference was a sign Mr Modi was panicked by comments Mr Gandhi made recently that the prime minister was on borrowed time.
Some believed he was appearing in response to the violence in West Bengal over the past few days. The West Bengal chief minister, Mamata Banerjee, of the Trinamool Congress Party, claimed the BJP had come to the eastern state to disrupt the campaign with violence.
The seventh and final phase of voting in the elections is on Sunday, and results will be released on 23 May.
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