Almost all opinion polls conducted in past one month have suggested
that Narendra Modi is the most popular PMship candidate, especially in the
states going to polls this winter. No national or regional leader is coming
even close to him.
Incumbent prime minister and Rahul Gandhi have scored much
less on the popularity scale as compared to Mr. Modi. Others like Nitish Kumar,
Mulayam Singh, Sushma Swaraj, L.K. Advani etc. also seem to have marginal
support.
Mr. Modi is ostensibly preferred as someone who could
instantly bring India back on faster and sustainable economic growth path,
besides ensuring a clean, transparent, responsive and accountable
administration.
However, the interesting part is that none of the people we
spoke to (certainly a tiny and unscientific sample) appeared to have any clue
about his economic policies & programs, and development agenda.
Everyone repeated the much publicized media headlines that
under his rule Gujarat has made tremendous economic progress.
This to our mind is little disconcerting.
Firstly, this allows Congress to set the election agenda to
which BJP and most regional parties will just be responding. Remember, Mayawati
committed the same mistake in UP elections last year. She just responded to the
agenda dictated by Congress, rather than setting her own agenda, and lost badly.
Given, the present economic mess and governance issue, the
Congress would obviously like the agenda to be social rather than economic,
where Sonia Gandhi has inarguably emerged as the champion, even better than
“Garibi Hatao fame Mrs. Indira Gandhi’.
Secondly, this inhibits non-aligned parties from coming
closer to BJP. In absence of a clear forward looking and articulately presented
economic agenda, BJP would continue to be associated with its traditional
social and religious agenda which does not suit many of the potential regional
allies in their local constituencies.
An overtly laid out exclusive socio-economic agenda would
provide a platform of common minimum program (CMP) on which a larger NDA could
be rebuilt.
BJP would need strong allies in Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu,
West Bengal, and Karnataka to have a realistic chance to forming a stable
government. Our feedback suggest that a clearly spelt CMP could get BJP support
of TDP, AIDMK, TMC and JD(S). 25 seats in UP could get them support of BSP post
polls.
Last but not the least, this makes Modi and BJP vulnerable
to over expectation (remember V. P. Singh,1989, Manmohan Singh, 2009, Akhilesh
Yadav, 2012).
Tomorrow we discuss the template of economic agenda which
people would like the BJP to present.
Thought for the day
“Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far.”
Theodor Roosevelt (American, 1958-1919 )
Word of the day
Serotinal (adj)
Pertaining to or occurring in late summer.
(Source: Dictionary.com)
Shri Nārada Uvāca
Guv Rajan has sought to take his contribution to the market gains back.
It’s a matter of time when Bernanke also seeks it back.
Only Modi would be willing to contribute more!
Previous posts in
the Mandate 2014 series:
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