Modi's electoral air strike

Clearly after the Pulwama attack on February 14 and the Indian Air Force raid on Balakot Pakistan 12 days later Prime Minister Narendra Modis popularity has risen and its expected to convert to enough votes and seats to return him in the next parliamentary election for which an announcement could come this weekA Twitter friend recently said that rural Rajasthan which just three months ago evicted the incumbent BJP state government is charged up for Modi Another friend in Mumbai says the BJPShiv Sena alliance is set to take twothirds of the Maharashtras 48 Lok Sabha seats In UP the situation is that the SPBSP alliance may not help Mayawati now for Akhilesh Yadavs core voters are likely to vote Hindu unlike her reliably transferable vote bloc Only South India looks unimpressedCaveats remain One things can change overnight though the chances are receding Despite Modis bravado that recent events were a pilot project in prelude to the real thing you would think hes now in pole position and so another airstrike or another form of controlled war a favourite phrase of BJP strategists would merely introduce an element of uncertaintyClearly more than even casualties the Indian government cannot stomach having one or more of its own as either prisoners of war as was the case with Wing Commander Abhinandan or hostages as was the case in 1999s IC814 hijacking One could even argue that Modis highest point was the period immediately following the Pulwama attack when the entire nation felt under siege the peak was the day of the airstrike But if Modi finds public devotion waning then who knows This is the same PM who surgically struck against his own public with the November 2016 demonetisationTwo the economy During the recent outbreak of war fever what escaped scrutiny was the recent release of statistics that even during this era of cookedup figures were unflattering to the government The economy had slowed down to 66 per cent the worst in five quarters dragging GDP growth to below seven per centFinance Minister Arun Jaitley may try all manner of verbal yoga and jalebi logic to emphasise that were the fastest largeeconomy growth on the planet but it is clearly not enough Economists are all agreed that India needs at least 10 per cent GDP growth and not of the cookedup kind to produce enough jobs for the labour market which sees a million new entrants every month The lack of jobs the Centre of Monitoring Indian Economy CMIE in fact says demonetisation destroyed 18 million jobs was what caused the BJP to lose three Hindispeaking states in December three states that may now get swept up in the current wave of patriotism that favours ModiBut worse are the figures on agriculture a 28 per cent growth in the OctoberDecember 2018 quarter the worst in three years and in nominal terms this is just 204 per cent the worst since 2004 when former NDA PM AB Vajpayee lost power This means that agrarian distress has not abated again the other main factor that had been working against Modi before the Pulwama strikeA conspiracy theorist might wonder about the timing of the Pulwama strike it was as if the terrorist handlers were handing the election on a platter to the Modi government By sheer coincidence it happened the very day that recentlyappointed Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra was to address her very first press conference One keeps hearing about how savvy she is but in the wake of the recent war clouds she has vanished from the public mindNo wonder then that Maharashtra Navnirman Sena chief Raj Thackeray accused the Modi government of manufacturing such incidents as the Pulwama attack and has publicly alleged that the Modi government has been planning on a preelection limited war with Pakistan for the past two years He also called for an inquiry against National Security Advisor Ajit Doval for the intelligence failure that might otherwise have prevented the terrorist attack Less stridently West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has demanded that the Prime Minister present to her and other opposition leaders a briefing on the Pulwama attack our air raid and the Pakistani capture of our IAF pilotShe has a point No minister has ever told us what happened in the air raid weve only read media reports that quote unnamed officials claiming that 300 terrorists were wiped out though the foreign media that visited the site saw no evidence of this She and others in the political class deserve to know unless of course Modi wants to exploit the whole episode for political advantage Who can blame him it means the difference between retaining power or losing it foreverAditya Sinhas latest book India Unmade How the Modi Government Broke the Economy with Yashwant Sinha is out now He tweets autumnshade Send your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomCatch up on all the latest Mumbai news crime news current affairs and also a complete guide on Mumbai from food to things to do and events across the city here Also download the new 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