Call for course correction with an eye on polls

2004 everyone thought Vajpayee government winning one more term going to be easy. The coalition had a comfortable 5-year term. There was no internal bickering.

The government has done well on a lot of fronts rural roads, water, electricity, and also National Highway development in terms of quadrilateral connectivity connecting the four metros of Delhi Mumbai Chennai and Kolkata. Before going to the elections, the government had two options of focusing on the achievements in the preceding 5 years. They could have gone to the electorate focusing on what was done to the rural areas in terms of rural road connectivity, drinking water, electricity etc. the second option was to project the infrastructure projects that were implemented the national highways etc connecting more with the urban electorate.

Whoever was incharge of projecting the image of the government for the 2004 elections chose the latter. They went with the slogan of “India shining” projecting the national highways, stock markets, connecting themselves with the urban electorate and the middle class not so with the rural masses. Opposition took clever advantage of this and projected the government more elitist centric and was able to do a campaign to their advantage. Result what was thought to be a comfortable win for BJP-led NDA turned out to be a disaster bringing UPA government led by congress to power putting back National progress and growth by a decade. In fact 2004-14 decade can be considered a lost decade for the nation. A decade when China concentrated on becoming the manufacturing hub of the world taking advantage of the WTO provisions an organisation which it joined late compared to India. The manufacturing sector did not take off during this decade in India missing out a growth model which could have led to a more inclusive development with a greater trickle-down effect.

Fast forward a decade later to 2014 to 2024. In the last one decade BJP government with full majority in the parliament has concentrated both on growth and welfare. Massive housing program under Pradhan mantri awas Yojana, help to the farmers under Kisan Samman Nidhi, food security under Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana ,poshan abhiyan concentrating on the nutritional needs and Grameen sadak Yojana for rural connectivity to name a few. The right thing for the government is to project these schemes appropriately and get connected to the common man and the mass of electorate to win the elections. But with over emphasis on one scheme of vande Bharat express the government is getting more connected with the urban middle class electorate and less than less with the common electorate though in terms of actual implementation of schemes and benefits flowing it is more to the poor and deserving. Did this have an impact on Karnataka elections 2023. I feel this misplaced focus on a few schemes to the exclusion of others has done a lot of electoral damage to BJP in the above elections.

It is time to do a course correction and focus on slew of projects and schemes this government has done for the common man which no other government earlier has done.

Capital investment versus present consumption requirements is a trade-off and dilemma all governments in power face more so in democracies where party in power needs to face the electorate periodically. In the last 9 years BJP government focused on capital investment with consequent spin off results in terms of growth and development. For 2023- 24 also government is planning capital expenditure above 13 lakh crores. But the electorate will not be in a position to appreciate future dividends of this massive capital expenditure when they see high prices of diesel and cooking gas. Fortunately, India has tamed the food inflation.

Time to think of partly subsidising cooking gas and diesel where the pinch is felt by common man even by sacrificing some of the capital expenditure. Good economics need not always be good politics. More so in an election year.

For Good of the country, it is essential BJP comes back power in 2024.A Course correction in terms of the schemes and projects the government wants to project and giving certain relief on petrol products and cooking gas will make this win more comfortable.