Whether the Modi Factor is Still Shining or Getting Diminished?

By Deepak Parvatiyar

March 30, 2015

Remember that at his very first election victory rally in Vadodara, Modi had declared triumphantly, “Achhey din aa gaye hain” (Better times have already arrived)?

As his government comes near to completion of a year in office, the ‘achhey din’ (better times) catchphrase still remains a misnomer. Why?
Clearly, the concept of ‘achhey din’ has different dimensions for different people. In these columns we had raised this question on 21 July last year – when his rivals had started mocking the ‘Achhey Din’ promise just about a couple of months after Modi came to power at the Centre – whether the Modi-led BJP, in its quest for power, had ventured dangerously far to sell a Utopian dream of ‘Acchey Din’, that was impossible to realise?

After all, every single individual has his/her perception of ‘achhe din’ which can never be satisfied! (http://www.elections.in/blog/is-this-the-right-time-to-mock-the-acche-din-concept/)

Before dwelling further on the topic, refer to the fact that just within eight months of Modi government at the helm, the largely middle-class and urban Delhi society outrightly rejected the prime minister’s exhortation that they should vote for his party to power in the Delhi assembly because he had brought luck as his ascent resulted in the fall of the global crude oil prices. Remember that just before the Delhi elections, the Modi magic had worked in four state elections –  Haryana, Maharashtra, Jharkhand, and Jammu and Kashmir!

Yet, in Delhi only three BJP candidates could win seats in the 70-member state legislature in the February elections, and it was fait accompli.  The Modi government is now fighting the nature’s fury as unseasonal rains have damaged crops and led to farmers’ suicide. Further rise in food price seems inevitable and this does spell trouble for the government.

So is the Modi factor getting diminished?

Modi had effectively sold the dream of better times ahead to the masses to win the last general elections but then, hadn’t he gone overboard to promise stars? After all, what could be the possible yardstick to measure this vague concept of ‘achhey din’?

To his credit, the prime minister did take some effective measures with regard to the country’s relationship with superpowers such as the USA, China and Japan, as well as the ASEAN and SAARC nations; and checking the economic downslide as well in his first year in office.

Consider some positives:

Modi’s Railway Budget this year was perhaps the first since Independence to offer a complete plan of action to make the Railways an instrument of development.

The General Budget for 2015-16 was widely held by the industry as ‘revolutionary’ for a number of reasons – Experts believe that measures such as clarifying permanent establishment status for fund managers in India, defining new social security framework, lowering corporate tax rate from 30 % to 25% over four years (many though question this particular provision to benefit the Corporate Houses and why no provision was made to increase the threshold for personal income tax), if implemented carefully, they can make India a favourable country to do business. It will considerably help in improving the quality of life. Moreover, the Budgetary proposal to amend legislation to provide the employees choosing either ESI or a Health Insurance product, recognised by the Insurance Regulatory Development Authority (IRDA), could prove to be an incentive for the youth to join the formal sector and check the growing trend of  youth joining informal workforce.

Modi failed on many counts

Yet, on many counts, Modi did fail to deliver what was largely expected of him in the wake of surging public expectations:

His government’s biggest failure has been to provide immediate relief from soaring prices of essentials and food items.

The much promised recovery of black money within a stipulated time period now appears a pipedream in face of the procedural complications involved.

There has been an inconsistency in the government’s Pakistan policy vis a vis the continuation of the dialogue process with Islamabad– it recently offered an olive branch  to Pakistan after cancelling all talks over the issue of Pakistan entertaining Kashmiri separatists.

The recent row over his government’s Land acquisition bill too did not do much good to Modi as the Opposition managed to project it as ‘anti-farmer’ and forced the government to defer it .

Besides, even in this year’s General Budget, there were omissions that suggested inconsistencies in the Modi government’s approach towards augmenting its policies. Consider that at least two important provisions — The Rs 10,000-crore ‘innovation fund’ and a road map for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s 100 smart cities’ scheme – missed a mention in the Union Budget 2015-16. Consider that both the issues had figured prominently in the first budget of the present government last year – Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had announced the Rs. 10,000-crore ‘innovation fund’ in his maiden budget last year. But nothing has been heard of it since then; as for the big ticket 100 smart cities’ scheme, the budgetary allocation this year was only Rs.143.05 crore as against Rs. 7,016 crore last year.  Even of the allocated fund of Rs. 7016 crore last year, only Rs. 924 crore was utilised.

What further queered the pitch was Jaitey’s avoidance of the term ‘smart cities’ in his budget speech this year even though his budget sought to boost infrastructure investment by increasing by 53 per cent the budget allocation for the urban development ministry which is also entrusted with the task of implementing the smart city project.

The omissions did adversely affect the public perception on the government’s intention to keeping promises and mark inconsistencies in policy augmentation.

Moreover, the proposal to reduce central assistance to State and Union Territories from Rs. 3.38 lakh crore in 2014-15 to Rs. 2.04 lakh crore in 2015-16 – which is an unprecedented cut of 39.64 per cent – too came for flak as it perceptibly negates the impact of 14th Finance Commission’s decision to increase the shareable element out of the divisible pool from 32 to 42 per cent.

Besides, an increase in service tax from 12.36% to 14% too did not go down well with the middle class as it would impact the expenses. An additional two per cent Swatch Bharat cess makes the effective increase to 14.28% (2% cess is on Service Tax amount only)! An increase in coal cess too would make power generation dearer!

Here are some more critical aspects of the General Budget:

The 29 per cent cut in the budget programme for children to address malnutrition, right to education, child protection and so on has not gone down well with Child Right activists.

The total allocation for rural schemes this year at Rs 79,526 crore was five per cent lower than last year’s allocation of Rs 83,852 crore and even the hike in overall allocation of Rural Development ministry this year was still only around 5.12 per cent.

Every government has its share of positives and negatives. Yet expectations had soared in the wake of Modi’s ‘acchey din’ slogan and the overwhelming majority that the government secured at the hustings – the first for any government in three decades.  But how could there be any yardstick to measure better times in tangible terms?

In light of this, there was every possibility of the concept of ‘Achhe Din’ boomeranging every time something went wrong with the government. After all, it indeed is an impossible task to make everybody happy. (Remember even on count of ‘happiness quotient’, India falls behind at least 100 countries in the list of the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network’s ‘World Happiness Reports’!)
One thing hence is seemingly certain that the euphoria surrounding Narendra Modi is settling down as the harsh realities of governance start raising their heads. They need to be addressed. The sooner it is done, the better for the prime minister!