Bhubaneswar, May 3: Former Union minister and Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar made some predictions on the BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi during an interaction with the audience at an award programme here.

After his talk on how transient power was, a member from the audience asked if he would be in power for five years from now, Aiyar said he would still "be an ex-MP but Modi will be an ex-PM".

Having been a bureaucrat in the foreign services, Aiyar reminisced his days in Iraq under the Saddam regime. "Saddam Hussain's life is a great example of how temporary power is. He was extremely powerful as a dictator, but finally had to hide in his home like a mouse when the US went after him," he said.

Aiyar also gave examples of how leading lights of the Non-Aligned Movement Josip Broz Tito of Yugoslavia, Gamal Abdul Nasser of Egypt and Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, who had been powerful leaders of their times, were not even remembered by their countrymen today. He said those in power should learn how to go on with grace after losing power. He gave examples of Gandhi, Nehru and Jesus among graceful leaders.

When asked if bureaucrats are more powerful or politicians, he said the former remained in power permanently but politicians did not have that advantage. In response to a question from the audience if women in India were powerful, he said: "With 16 states, including Odisha, having 50 per cent women elected to the panchayat and over 14 lakh women across India in the panchayat bodies, India has the highest number of elected women in the world."

The politician said his remarks in Pakistan were distorted.