Lot of people believe that BJP won in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh because of the last minute rallies of Prime Minister Modi and his charisma. Although it has not been a thumping victory for BJP.
Anil Padmanabhan, Deputy Managing Editor, Mint said it has been remarkable elections for Modi and BJP because there were so many negatives going their way – bad run with their CMs, rural distress, GST, demonetisation.
On the other had Congress should also go home with their tail up because in terms of eventually setup they will be better off. However, they should go back and think why they could not monetize on so much anger against BJP, and fact is they could have gone, if they had gone the full distance.
When asked if he would find any change in the way government is pursuing policies, any greater degree of populism, greater degree of liberties with fiscal deficits – any change? Padmanabhan said, the next Budget is going to be a big spend Budget and there is no doubt about it. In the HT Leadership Summit, the Finance Minister prioritized rural spending as one of the big areas in the upcoming Budget.
However, at the same time fiscal conservativeness of the current regime is obvious, so they are unlikely to trade one off against the other.
It is obvious that going into 2019, candidate Modi is taking guard right now, he said.
When asked is the future bright for Rahul Gandhi, he said the important point is Gandhi has put himself in the opponent’s corner as far as Modi goes and so far we did not have a serious challenger to Modi. Moreover, with the kind of performance Congress has pulled off in Gujarat, Rahul Gandhi seems to be a big morale booster.
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