Prime Minister Narendra Modi speaks to Shashi Shekhar on a range of issues, including NDA’s governance record, the economy, demonetisation, opposition strategy and his party’s poll prospects. Edited excerpts:

You complete five years as the Prime Minister soon. How do you look back on these years?

It had been a very satisfactory and extremely good five years. My experience in these five years boosted my belief that there is no reason why India should remain in the category of developing countries. We have all the capabilities to be a developed country.

When I came here, the situation was much worse than what I thought it would be. It was a terrible situation. I was new to this place and I also had to understand issues but as we started taking decisions, several worrying things came up. My long experience as chief minister helped me to remain confident and I knew that we would find ways, and we did find ways.