Two Years of Modi Rule

Now that the BJP-led NDA government of rendra Modi has completed two years in office, it is time to assess how the government has performed. Even a cursory assessment tells us that rendra Modi’s government has been propped up more by promises than performance. Addressing the first of his four public rallies slated for Uttar Pradesh at Saharanpur on Friday, Modi said, inter alia, “If you look at my work of two years, you will see (that) one decision after the other was taken to empower the poor to fight poverty, to strengthen the poor against poverty so that they could defeat it...  I have always tried to work for the common man.” Unfortutely, not many people will accept this statement. If he really cared about the common man, he would have taken care of what really hits the common man hardest: unchecked inflation. During the two years of NDA rule, prices of essential commodities have gone through the roof despite a decline in crude oil prices. And no one in government has even been talking about high prices. Perhaps the other major criticism of rendra Modi is that he has probably spent more time abroad in these two years than he has spent at home. He has also spent crores of rupees of public money in doing this. We are not convinced that this has brought any special benefits to India. On Thursday, he also said that unlike before, “India is not standing in a corner.” Has it not occurred to him that regardless of his perceptions about India, the average bewildered Indian is standing in a corner wondering what happened to all the promises rendra Modi had made in his pre-election speeches of 2014. The time has come to deliver and to bring the bewildered Indian out of his corner.