NARENDRA MODI’S SHEEN IS FAST WEARING OFF
Prime Minister Narendra Modi had an unusually long honeymoon with the electorate after he was swept to power in 2014. His charisma and oratory carried the day. That the period of relative comfort has finally ended and the government is being criticised by all and sundry on a whole host of issues is hardly surprising. The pendulum has swung inexorably.
It was indeed enigmatic when, despite the long queues for a paltry sum of money from their own bank accounts the common man and the middle class were stoic and indulgent towards the establishment. But all hell has now broken loose.
It would be foolhardy to deny that things have begun to go awry and that the sheen has worn off the Modi government. If the opposition to the government’s performance is still somewhat muted it is because the very thought of Rahul Gandhi as an alternative prime minister sends shivers down the spine of thinking individuals.
The challenge for Modi is to make sure that this remains only a passing phase and there is retrieval before it is too late.
The contrasting scenario of repeated scams during the UPA regime and virtually no financial scandals under the Modi dispensation made people heave a sigh of relief. But the government cannot rest on its laurels indefinitely. The Modi government cannot ignore the fact that behind the scenes, an image makeover for Rahul is being worked upon and his two-week US trip was designed to create a hype around him. Dramatically, the Congress’ propaganda machine was hard at work to paint Rahul as a transformed individual who was making an impact as he addressed student audiences. Reticent and disjointed in his thoughts here was a new Rahul who was taking jabs at Modi and getting away with them with cheerleaders there to drumbeat his new persona. Back home, there was little that the Congress needed to do with the Modi sheen wearing off in a normal way. The word had begun to spread after the drumming up of critical comments on demonetisation that the Modi dispensation was all words and no action.
Seeing Modi cornered by the media and by a section of intellectuals, the anti-Modi lobby has come out into the open. It is becoming increasingly vocal and aggressive even as the likes of UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath and Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar hurtle from one false step to another. There is a woeful lack of accountability of Modi’s favourites and the people are beginning to question that increasingly. Propriety demanded that Khattar should have been shown the door after the fiasco in Panchkula in which the common citizen was terrorised in the wake of Godman Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh’s arrest. Not doing so was an affront to the people and the first big shock for Modi supporters.
But the biggest jolt to the Modi government has come from the downturn in the economy. Even making allowance for media excesses, demonetisation has been a black mark on the government’s record in office. There have been a couple of positives, the digitisation of the economy has got a perceptible boost and there is greater fear of black money hoarding as borne out by a fall in conspicuous consumption, but the deleterious effect of demonetisation on the small and medium enterprises that depended on cash has been crippling. That not an opposition leader but the Finance Minister in Atal Behari Vajpayee’s erstwhile government, Yashwant Sinha, has cast serious doubts over the government’s growth figure of 5.7 per cent which in any case reflected a major economic slowdown, is a matter of deep concern.
Sinha has pointed out that with the methodology for calculation of the GDP having been changed by the Narendra Modi government in 2015, the claimed growth rate of 5.7 per cent is actually 3.7 per cent or less. Modi had a world of talent available to him when he assumed power if only he had looked beyond his political environment. But he goofed up in not reaching out to the promising ones in myriad spheres. The result is that there is a serious dearth of talent in the council of ministers.
There is also a seeming mismatch of some portfolios. Arun Jaitley is an extremely articulate and gifted minister but was Finance the appropriate portfolio for him? The biggest flak indeed is reserved for economic mismanagement, be it in regard to demonetisation or in the implementation of the Goods and Services Tax (GST). True, GST is still in its infancy and the glitches could well be ascribed to teething troubles in an intrinsically sound project. But the correctives have to come now or it would be hard to retrieve lost ground. All is certainly not lost nor are there no positives in the performance of the Modi government overall. But with a bare year and a half to go for the general elections, the time for course correction is now. The first pre-requisite for correctives is, however, recognition of the need for remedial action which in turn requires shedding the arrogance that comes almost inevitably with power. The constitution of the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council with Bibek Debray at the helm, Surjit Bhalla, Rathin Roy, Ashima Goyal as members and Ratan Watal as member-secretary is a positive move. The fact that the Manmohan Singh government too had such a council headed by former Reserve Bank Governor C. Rangarajan is hardly anything for the Congress to boast about.
The Prime Minister’s aggressive promise to provide electricity connection to every household in the country by December 2018 is also a benchmark that deserves praise for its ambitiousness. Modi’s excellent performance on the international and bilateral stages and the tangible progress towards the goal of winning back the hearts of the people of Kashmir are also tangible gains. The fact that his government has been scam-free is no ordinary achievement. There can be little doubt that Prime Minister Modi is still by far the best bet for the country today and in the foreseeable future.
The author is a senior journalist and commentator.
MODI HAD a world of talent available to him when he assumed power if only he had looked beyond his political environment. But he goofed up in not reaching out to the promising ones in myriad spheres.The result is that there is a serious dearth of talent in the council of ministers.There is also a seeming mismatch of some portfolios. Arun Jaitley is an extremely articulate and gifted minister but was Finance the appropriate portfolio for him? The biggest flak indeed is reserved for economic mismanagement, be it in regard to demonetisation or in the implementation of the Goods and Services Tax (GST).