NEW DELHI: In yet another sign that all may not be well with his high visibility campaign to become India’s full blown right wing prime minister, Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi appeared to take a somersault on his politics of religious sectarianism on Friday, saying he would rather face defeat than pursue politics of identity.

“I will not make any appeal to Hindus or Muslims, but to the entire 125 crore people of India. If it suits them, then it is fine. If it does not suit them, I am ready to face defeat in the elections, I am ready to be wiped out,” he told CNBC-TV18 in what appeared to be one of his promotional interviews.

A few of such TV interviews, aired on channels owned by his corporate supporters, are packaged as honest conversations.

“My mantra is that all are one. I cannot accept a divide between brothers of the country in the name of secularism. In the name of secularism, the nation has been divided.”

Muslims have emerged as a crucial factor in the elections, but Mr. Modi’s strategists have said they would adopt the policy of “uniting the Hindus and dividing the Muslims”. The interview is being seen as part of the strategy.

Questioned on the BJP’s objections to Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s meeting with Shahi Imam of Delhi’s Jama Masjid, when the Hindutva party’s president Rajnath Singh had later met Muslim clerics in Lucknow, Mr. Modi said the objection was not to the meeting but the “message” going out. The interviewer did not choose to press him to explain the garbled logic.

“We want Soniaji to meet Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, anybody. It is part of democracy... but a particular community was told whom to vote for. This is against the constitution and electoral laws. It is not wrong to meet, but the message that has gone out is a matter of concern.”

The Hindu revivalist Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS), whose politics is based primarily on spreading hatred of Muslims and Christians, is running Mr Modi’s core election campaign. His main election manager is Gujarat politician Amit Shah, pulled up by the election commission for making a deliberate anti-Muslim pitch to woo Jat voters from Muzaffarnagar recently.

Mr Modi said in the CNBC interview that if voted to power, he would give priority to preventing corruption and not “waste time on cleaning up old mess”.

Asked if he were to be PM and charges of corruption came up against him, Mr Modi replied: “Professionally, if there are any allegations against me, those cases should not get stuck, but continue.”

Mr. Modi has generally shunned being interviewed by probing journalists and he famously walked away from a TV show hosted by a dogged Karan Thapar whoasked him about the mass murder of Muslims under his watch in 2002, which Mr Modi was not comfortable with. Earlier this week, he said he should be hanged publicly if found guilty of complicity in the rape and murder under his watch.

Ironically, on Friday, Mr Modi also talked about dealing with criminalisation of politics, saying his government would ask the Supreme Court to create a mechanism to fast-track pending cases against lawmakers.

His closest colleague, Mr. Shah, is out on bail in a clutch of criminal cases, including murder.

Describing corruption as a “disease”, he said he would put in place a mechanism to prevent corruption.

“My priority will be to develop a system by which the scope of corruption is minimised. We have to decide whether I should concentrate my efforts on preventing new corruption or to clean up the old mess. My conscience says that my focus should be to ensure that new mess (of corruption) is not created,” he said.

“If I create such a mechanism which has technology and transparency and all the preventive measures, we will jointly address the issue of corruption.

That should not be political, otherwise the cause will be defeated and this disease will continue to increase,” he added.