New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi, like him or dislike him, has been a strong leader, who has seen major political success over the last seven years.
“The fact is that his politics has been greatly, overwhelmingly successful in the last seven years now,” said ThePrint’s Editor-in-Chief Shekhar Gupta in episode 687 of Cut the Clutter.
Gupta speaks about the three pillars of PM Modi’s success story and also about how the last 60 hours have been crucial as the PM has undertaken multiple initiatives across several states.
Focus on infrastructure
In the last few days, the prime minister visited Tamil Nadu and Kerala, where he laid the foundation stone of power projects and inaugurated a 9-km stretch of the Chennai Metro.
“Among the broad list of things that he has done, in Kerala he inaugurated a 320-KW power plant and a 50-MW solar power plant in Thrissur. In Tamil Nadu, he went to oil refineries and also visited Chennai and inaugurated a 9-km phase of the Chennai metro phase one,” Gupta said.
In Assam, Gupta said, Modi launched a two-lane bridge from the river bank in Jorhat district to Majuli, which is the largest river island in the world.
He also launched the Mahabahu-Brahmaputra programme, which is a very ambitious programme for river navigation in Assam.
The big takeaway from all these inaugurations and visits is — infrastructure.
“So, the Modi government is making infrastructure construction building a very central part of its politics,” Gupta said.
He also mentioned ‘Metro man’ E. Sreedharan, who will join the BJP in Kerala, calling him a “national icon” and “APJ Kalam of infrastructure building” in the country.
“So to get him into BJP, he will not win the BJP Kerala, the message from getting him to BJP (is) that BJP loves to build infrastructure and it also honours the infrastructure builders of India,” Gupta added.
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Welfare and Hindutva
The second pillar of the PM’s success story is “efficient welfare at the poorest level”.
“Look at the Ujjwala scheme, PM Gramin Awas Yojna, PM Kisan direct benefit transfer, direct transfer of cash even to those affected by the pandemic, it’s delivered very efficiently. So, nearly nine crore people in India have got their LPG cooking gas connections. That’s the reality and you may want to reject it but look at how India’s kerosene consumption is coming down in several states,” he said.
According to Gupta, the third pillar of the prime minister’s politics is “robust, muscular nationalism”.
“Robust, muscular testosterone driven, hard nationalism soaked in Hindutva. So if you take these three (pillars), they become quite a formidable proposition before Indian voters,” he added.
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