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Selfies, smiles and hand shakes: it was media's Narendra Modi moment

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PM Narendra Modi greets journalists at the Diwali Mangal Milan programme at the BJP headquarters in New Delhi on Saturday
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It was a day of back-patting camaraderie at the BJP's Ashoka Road headquarters in Delhi as Prime Minister Narendra Modi shook hands, posed for selfies and bantered with over 400 Delhi journalists as if to make up with them for fencing them out of the party's inner circles and news sources after he took over.

If it was a day of trying to reestablish the broken rap then it worked well, though the PM said that he had not yet worked out a way of connecting with journalists. "How did you fracture your hand?" he asked one of them, as he walked aroudn the gathering patiently stopping for selfies and photographs. When the BJP invited editors and political reporters for a Dipavali Milan with the Prime Minister, there was intense curiosity and buzz about what he was going to say.

The PM hit the right note when he praised the media for its role in the Swachh Bharat campaign and promising to strengthen his ties with the fourth estate. "You have turned your pen into a broom. This is a big service to the nation," he said in a brief introductory speech.

Modi, who did not touch on the party's victory in the recent state elections or any other political issue, said the media's role in the Swachh Bharat campaign had inspired people and was an indication of the constructive role it could play.

The journalists he was familiar with, he addressed by name while others introduced themselves. He smiled, joked and even tried his hand at a Nikon camera. When a journalist asked about the prospects of a cabinet reshuffle, he turned, smiled, and moved on to the next row. All through his interaction, enthusiastic journalists milled around him, several of them indulging in the new rage of taking selfies with the leader.

He recalled his days at the BJP headquarters as a party general secretary and said he had a close relationship with the media which helped him in later years. "I used to arrange chairs here for you. Those were different days when we interacted freely..... I am looking for a way to make my relationship with you deeper. Hopefully in a while we will find some way," he said.

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