Modi and India

Mr. Narendra Modi, the person whose name needs no introduction, is in the centre of the dais now. No more debates over AAP vs BJP, no more discussions over the Gujarat development model, all we are looking forward to, is for him to deliver, to rise to the occasion and fulfil all his promises.

The elections have given "him" a clean majority, the people of India gave their mandate solely on the merits of Narendra Modi. The general elections 2014, might in fact be arguably remembered as the elections when a person rose above everyone to garner the popular support. To date, it has been almost 30 days for Modi ji since he took in charge of the Prime Minister Office. This period has seen a lot of hustle and bustle in the PMO. Many decisions have been taken, some of which received a positive response while some have been criticized heavily.

Modi sarkar received a warm welcome from the market which showed tremendous growth as soon as the results were out. People could see the much hyped "achhe din" into making. Modi-Sharif meeting generated a lot of buzz and was welcomed warmly by everyone across the globe. However, the new government had barely opened its eyes that controversy over article 370 and the educational qualifications of the ministers fumed and Modiji's silence was something which caused more panic than these controversies. Amongst all this, several steps were taken to end the dynasty culture and the hate oppsition politics. PMO passed regulations advising ministers not to rename the projects passed by UPA government and Modiji himself came out asking state governments to restrain from having a chapter on him in school text books. Modiji further cemented his personna of a dedicated worker by abolishing all GoMs, thus increasing the accountability of his ministers and expedite the decision making process. People could see MODIfication of the entire machinery in process. 

But before this could happen, the murder of a techie in Pune took over the entire country over storm. The communal touch given to this incident followed by similar comments from the BJP MP from Pune and other organisations associated with BJP made people wonder if their worst fears were about to come true! Add to this the recent arrests over misleading and unfortunate comments on Narendra Modi on Social Media, and you get the idea why his haters emphasized on Gujarat riots and his being undemocratic.

Since then it has been a roller coaster ride for Modi Government. On one hand, Modi promoted transparency by ordering ministers to disclose their assets within two months and focused on making government procedures simpler by abolishing GoMs and allowing self-attestation, while on the other hand, measures such as hike in the prices of Diesel, frequent power cuts and defending the Rape-accused minister worked against Modi. As if  this wasn't a sufficient dent in the upcoming "acche din",  Mr. Modi, who wrote a letter in March to then Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh against the decision to hike passenger rail fares, announced that the rail fares would be hiked by 14.2%, a decision which is being termed as the biggest U-turn in Indian Politics of recent times. All efforts to explain this decision have so far been in vain, the prime reason being the earlier stand.  Hike in import duties on sugar and the plan to increase prices of LPG, natural gas and kerosene have only generated more negative response.

Now, one thing is for sure. Government is definitely working and setting things straight. It had to take some unpopular decisions but upon thinking rationally, one can see the justification. The sole problem here lies in people's expectation. People want to see the same Gujarat Chief Minister Mr. Narendra Modi work as the Prime Minister, who they used to read about. The pre elections image of Mr. Narendra Modi, one with 56" inches chest and no-bullshit attitude, the once who transformed Gujarat (at least this is what is known to everyone in general) has definitely raised the bar. It might get a bit difficult for our Prime Minister, Mr. Narendra Modi to live up to that image. Things would have been simpler if he was being compared to Dr. Manmohan Singh and the previous UPA government. But that is not the case. He has to compete with himself, live up to everyone expectations which were raised by him during campaigning.

Now that he is in office and is our Prime Minister, we can only hope that he does not lose out to the ex chief Minister of Gujarat, Mr. Narendra Bhai Modi. Wishing all the very best to him and our country!