New Delhi: At the upcoming annual business summit organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), one of India’s largest industry associations, the only two ministers slated to represent the Narendra Modi government are Nirmala Sitharaman and S. Jaishankar. This doesn’t seem to be an accident.
The past few months have seen the government put forth these two ministers — considered its more erudite, eloquent and English-savvy leaders — to speak to India’s business community in order to assuage their concerns and provide policy certainty.
Apart from cities like Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Pune and Surat, considered hubs favoured by India’s business community, this outreach towards the community, working professionals, and even social media influencers has extended to Delhi, Kolkata, Thiruvananthapuram, Coimbatore, Jaipur, and Bengaluru as well, to name a few.
Sources in the Ministry of Finance also indicate that Sitharaman’s upcoming schedule of engagements is determined more by political engagements of this nature rather than policy issues since the Model Code of Conduct is in place.
This outreach also comes at a time when the stock market has been volatile, which some attribute to election-related uncertainties, and the business community is holding off on announcing any new investments.
Just two days ago, Jaishankar, whose primary charge is the Ministry of External Affairs, spoke at the National Stock Exchange during a seminar on capital markets. Large parts of his speech were devoted to conveying stability and certainty.
“I have every confidence that we will not only have a strong and a stable government, but will have a government with a stronger majority, and therefore, with a greater ability to take decisions which will take this country forward,” he said.
He also assured the audience that the volatility in the stock market would ease with each subsequent phase of elections.
A day later, on Tuesday, Jaishankar flew to the other end of the country, where he spoke in Kolkata at an event organised by the Indian Chamber of Commerce. He again made a pro-business pitch, saying that “sunrise” sectors would have to be encouraged, and highlighted how the Modi government had been doing so.
The same day, Finance Minister Sitharaman was at the Bombay Stock Exchange, the other major exchange in India, speaking on ‘Viksit Bharat 2047 — Vision for India’s financial markets—. She, too, sought to ease the volatility in the stock markets by saying “there is absolutely no need for investors to worry about the outcome of the ongoing polls”.
“There is no need for the volatility index to fluctuate the way it has been doing in recent days,” she said. “There is no need for VIX (the volatility index) to fluctuate at all.”
This outreach to the business community has been on for a while. In early April, Jaishankar spoke in Surat at Bharat’s Economic Rising, a corporate summit organised by the Southern Gujarat Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SGCCI). He talked about the continuity of the Modi government’s manufacturing push.
“If we talk of rising Bharat, it will rise through technology,” he said. “You cannot build strong technology on weak manufacturing. At any cost, we should put special emphasis on manufacturing, because that is the only economic response.”
Later that month, Sitharaman also addressed Gujarati businesspeople, this time in Ahmedabad, at an event organised by the Gujarat Chambers of Commerce and Industry. She called on their support, saying that with “another good solid 25 years of sabka prayaas (everybody’s effort), we will be able to reach ‘Viksit Bharat’”.
The communication effort by Sitharaman and Jaishankar has not been limited to business summits either, but has extended to interviews to the media, and engagements with social media influencers.
For example, in an interview this month with The Indian Express, Sitharaman made several statements aimed at easing concerns in the business community on a variety of topics.
On the ongoing debate on inequality, and how to address this, she made it clear that the BJP’s stance was in favour of wealth creators, unlike what she said the Congress’s approach was — “to make the wealthier poor” instead of making the poor richer.
“It’s just unjust,” she said. “Wealth creators also provide jobs and opportunities to people and resources to the government.”
The finance minister was also quick to downplay Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s comment last week about the Adani-Ambani duo transferring black money to the Congress, which many took as an out-of-character lashing out at the business community.
The statement, Sitharaman said, was intended to highlight the hypocrisy of the Congress.
“After developing a narrative of hatred towards businessmen, the Congress perhaps couldn’t find a graceful way to exit, and suddenly adopted silence in the hope that people will no longer notice their hatred,” she said. “The PM’s speech was in that spirit.”
Jaishankar, too, gave an interview to the Press Trust of India (PTI) this month, in which he spoke about the importance of focusing on manufacturing.
Jaishankar and Sitharaman have over the past two months also separately met groups of social media influencers in a number of cities, as well as business leaders from micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs).
(Edited by Tikli Basu)
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