The
Coming Budget Is a Litmus Test Of Modi’s Credibility
Former NDA Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha has it right on the
reason why AAP won in Delhi. And Senior Journalist Ashok Malik was spot on in
his advice to the BJP Central Government to ‘bash on regardless’.
Most of the abundant political punditry suggests a course-correction.
However, almost all the hectic analysis misses the central point, the one that
Yashwant Sinha made. It is simply this: when an entire opposition vote
coalesces, even a strong campaign is doomed to failure.
But why did the opposition vote consolidate so completely behind
Arvind Kejriwal?
Thereby hangs a tale of neglect. If Modi chooses to dither further
on what he was voted in for, things can only go from bad to worse. He needs to
remind himself why he won his thumping majority.
Where are those acche din? He might think he deserves
more time, but to not even make a beginning is baffling to the public. From the
street right now, Hindutva is
shouting much louder than Vikas.
Yet, it really wasn’t the
crude Hindutva excesses, the Church
vandalising, the alleged arrogance, a socialist backlash, various knee-jerk
decisions, the infighting, the
para-trooped, last- minute CM candidate,
the ill-advised negative campaigning, the continued raping and
murdering, that pin-striped suit, or over familiarity with Obama. These things
may well have annoyed some people, who don’t like Modi or his politics anyway,
but it would not have lost BJP the election.
The BJP lost Delhi because nothing has changed for the nice guy RK
Laxman’s common-man, or the AAP’s much nastier Aam Aadmi. That Jan Dhan
Account alone does not hack it. The most positive happening since May 2014,
delivered by providence and globanomics, is that fuel prices fell over 50%. India’s
fuel expense ‘basket’ came to be 42% less weighty, but only 15% of this
wind-fall was passed on to the public. The inflation rate dropped, but not the
interest rates that could have restarted the investment cycle, beyond a paltry
25 bps.
Looking forward to the Railway and Union Budgets coming up, a sea-change
must come, and right now. But the Modi Government will betray itself if it turns
sharp Left towards populism in panic. Big-ticket Reform promises have been
tantalising and teasing via sound-bytes from the Finance Minister. But will he
deliver? The pace and content so far has been disappointing. This Government
simply cannot hold the faith of an impatient, aspirational electorate without
changing gear. It would be strange indeed if the Modi Government did not
realise the magnitude of the demand for change.
What we have so far are some tweaked statistics, many pledges,
loads of high profile photo-ops, resurgent financial markets, flashy plans in
the misty future, even a little sabre-rattling. This is simply not good enough.
Hopefully, these much awaited Budgets will exceed expectations by a huge margin,
because only that will put Modi and his credibility back in the saddle.
NaMo won the biggest mandate in 30 years, to bring about vast
economic transformation in the lives of all Indians. But the first shock was the bureaucratic and
unimaginative Union Budget, presented in June 2014. The BJP-voting public
consoled itself then that reform need not necessarily come via the Budgets. It could
be introduced any time, whenever the Government thought it appropriate.
But then, nothing happened. The
diesel price deregulation stands out as the only big reform in eight months. Cosmetic
touches such as cracking the whip on Government office attendance and publicity
campaigns on cleaning up Bharat are fine in their place, but dismaying for
their inadequacy against popular expectations.
Many pro-BJP commentators, such as Tavleen Singh and this one, have
been pointing this out for several months now, but the central leadership
appears not to have noticed. Perhaps it was too focussed on winning Assembly
elections, and collecting investment pledges abroad, to actually start the
process off.
The public expected sweeping economic policy change by now.
Instead, obscure BJP MPs , hate-mongering fringe elements, the ambivalent RSS
Chief Mohan Bhagwat, have all been airing their views. None of them are the
least bit bothered about ‘Vikas’. It must be NaMo therefore, who has to put the
economic transformation, across-the-board modernisation, infrastructure
building, and jobs, on track.
The Railway Budget on the 26th and the Union Budget on the 28th can surely be mindful of the poor, and retain
a set of efficient welfare measures, but
Modi must be clear he did not promise, and wasn’t elected, to run a a dole Raj.
That is what UPA did, alongside its
corrupt ways, and the voting public was not impressed.
Big-bang reform therefore, must be the overwhelming flavour of
Budgets 2015. It must be a landmark set of announcements, ushering in stage-two
of India’s rapid development. It must be seen to be fulfilling Modi’s promises
to the people of India, while also redeeming the pledges he has made to the
Indian diaspora, and the international community at large.
For:
NitiCentral
(822 words)
February
12th, 2015
Gautam
Mukherjee
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