By K Raveendran
It was NCP spokesman Nawab Malik who described the Jharkhand assembly poll results as the demolition of the arrogance of Modi and Amit Shah. There has not been a more cryptic analysis of BJP’s situation today.
It would appear that the BJP has been undone not because of the strength of the opposition, but the lack of a credible opposition, which gave the party and the government a false sense of security, making both ever more intolerant. The clock-work precision of the ruling party’s floor strategy in parliament has been widely acclaimed, but the advantage robbed the leadership of its sense of realism, which egged it on to a reckless course. But whenever such things happen, the system throws up its own resistance mechanism.
This is the message that has to be read into the results of the recent assembly elections. The saffron party’s dreams of cobbling a majority in Rajya Sabha, which would have given the NDA the all-clear to push its various doubtful agendas have been shattered, thanks to the series of reverses in the assembly elections, the latest of which has been a real shocker.
The reversals have frustrated the party’s ambition of achieving a Congress-free India so much so that self-preservation would appear to be a more logical target. Not only has the saffron outfits failed to exterminate Congress, as they had dreamt, the grand old party of India has received an unexpected impetus in many states, thanks to the arbitrary and abrasive policies of the NDA governments.
In fact, BJP’s footprint on the political map of the country has been shrinking consistently over the past few months. The party was in power on its own in 13 states as of March 2018, but his has now fallen to eight. More importantly, the party draws a blank in the crucial central India region, with its pockets restricted to the northern and eastern border and just two states, Gujarat and Karnataka, on the western coast.
In terms of geographical area, the equation has just reversed. In March 2018, the party was in power over two-thirds of the country. Now it is out of power in two-thirds, which means its control has been reduced to only one-third. This is too steep a fall for any political dispensation to feel comfort. This means that with all its histrionics with threat to national security, Kashmir and the citizenship laws, the government has failed to divert people’s attention from the real issues facing the country, which are all economic in nature. Whatever happens to the economy is real and it affects people’s daily life. It is natural, therefore, that it determines the choice of people when it comes to elections.
The economy has refused to be enchanted with the Modi magic as it continues to emanate symptoms of a life-threatening clot in the system. Demand has evaporated in all conceivable sectors of the economy, which has forced production cuts on the major industries. Job losses are continuing unabated, driving already serious unemployment levels to multi-year highs. The shadowed banking sector has gutted consumer credit, corporate loan growth, rural demand and property prices.
According to government’s own figures, the second quarter GDP growth rate fell to 4.5 per cent, the lowest in more than six years, compared with 7.1 per cent in the same quarter of 2018-19. More importantly, there are no signs of an immediate turnaround.
Economic growth prospects for 2020 have been slashed by domestic as well as global agencies, including the Reserve Bank of India, Moody’s, the IMF-World Bank, Asian Development Bank and others. Estimates go down to as low as 1.5 percent. And there is no way India can achieve the fancied target of hitting a $5 trillion economy by 2025.
The latest IMF-World Bank report on India has further downgraded India’s prospects and called for urgent policy actions to reverse the current downturn and restore growth. It has stressed the importance for the near-term policy mix to be mindful of supporting economic activity and restoring confidence, while recognizing significant fiscal constraints.
Calling for structural reforms, the report says that in the medium-term, realizing India’s substantial growth potential depends critically on the implementation of growth-enhancing structural reforms.
The worst part is that none of the problems of the Indian economy has been caused by external factors, as was the case with the financial crisis of 2008, in which the affected economies had little choice. (IPA Service)