After securing a powerful electoral mandate last week for a second five-year term, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi has a unique opportunity to embrace economic reforms without populist hues. This is also an imperative because economic factors will decide India’s power in its subcontinent and elsewhere.
The results of the latest election show that India’s voters are willing to shrug off the lackluster economic performance of the Modi government’s first term that began in 2014 and give him a second chance. The BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) stormed back to power in an unexpected show of strength in elections to the Lok Sabha, the lower house of the Indian parliament, held in April and May.
These elections, among the most divisive and fractious in recent times, were a contest between Modi and Rahul Gandhi, president of the Indian National Congress, the prime ministerial candidate proposed by a coalition of BJP’s rivals.
The BJP’s continuation in power marks “a historic turning point for India politically, and perhaps eventually economically [as well],” notes Marshall Bouton, acting director and visiting scholar at the Center for the Advanced Study of India.
The results also have the seeds of an “economic turning point” since most voters seemed to ignore the previous Modi government’s disappointing performance on the economy. Bouton recalls that when the Modi government came to power in 2014, it had promised “Sabka Vikas,” or economic growth for all. Those hopes were unfulfilled, he pointed out. “Younger India has aspirations for a stronger India and a stronger person representing India,” says Bouton, “and they’re willing to give [Modi] a second chance.”
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