Modi changed his name from "Narendra kumar Damodardas Modi," which he used in admission form for MA Part I, to "Narendra Damodardas Modi" in MA Part II.

The Gujarat University said that, Prime Minister Narendra Modi "slightly changed" his name in the MA admission form, dropping 'Kumar' from it. The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) claimed that the degrees and marksheets of the PM had "glaring discrepancies".

Vice Chancellor of Gujarat University, Mahesh Patel told , "Since  Modi had taken admission in MA Part I in 1981 on the basis of his DU degree, he used his name as ‘Narendrakumar Damodardas Modi’.  when filling MA Part II form, he dropped 'kumar' and wrote Narendra Damodardas Modi in the form.

Mahesh Patel said, a candidate can charge his name slightly. Now we have computerized system in place, so whatever the name of the candidate filled in admission form carries on in the second part as well." "So his degree was issued on the basis of his name in MA Part II. Since, at that time there was no computerized system and everything was done manually.

Mahesh Patel said Modi, obtained 237 marks out of 400 in MA Part I and 262 marks out of 400 in MA Part II. Vice Chancellor said, Modi received 499 out of 800 marks. He got 62.3% in his MA.

Earlier in the day, in response to Aam Aadmi Party's allegations, questioned Modi’s degree from Delhi University, the BJP released copies of Modi's BA and MA degrees. However, AAP hit back the statement by saying that, all documents were "forged" and had "glaring discrepancies" in them.

AAP leader Ashutosh addressed a press conference and said, he claimed that Modi's name did not match in his BA degree to MA degree and claimed that there were discrepancies in the year of passing.

On its part, the BJP, has produced the BA and MA certificates of the Prime Minister and claimed them to be genuine. AAP leaders, pointed that, they don’t have clear answers from the party on the discrepancies,  but they are expected to brush these off as clerical errors. The party would like others to believe that the allegations are pure fiction with no basis in reality.

Nobody was discussing the degree issue with any seriousness, but after the BJP’s media conference it has assumed some gravitas. In the coming  days, The AAP will dig out some more documents and keep the BJP leaders on their toes.

- Panuganti Mayuka