Friday, 17 May, 2024
Prime Minister Narendra Modi delivered his ninth speech from the ramparts of the Red Fort today. Dr Manmohan Singh has done it 10 times and the late Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi have done it 17 and 16 times respectively. As usual, legions of his fans will wax eloquent about his eloquence.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi delivered his ninth speech from the ramparts of the Red Fort today. Dr Manmohan Singh has done it 10 times and the late Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi have done it 17 and 16 times respectively. As usual, legions of his fans will wax eloquent about his eloquence.As usual, legions of his critics will sneer and categorise his speech as petty politics. In any democracy, people are free to agree and disagree, like and dislike and applaud or condemn. At the end of the day though, a functional democracy is defined by what ordinary citizens who also happen to be voters think about issues and personalities. On that count, available data suggests that the fans of Modi far outnumber his critics. Not only did a majority of Indians were completely satisfied with his Independence Day speech, but they seem to be convinced Narendra Modi will win the 2024 Lok Sabha elections and deliver more from the Red Fort. A disclaimer must be added here that public opinion does change many times and the responses given by Indians today guarantee a 2024 victory for Modi. Only astrologers and fools would make any such forecasts with a degree of confidence.
But as of today, the popularity of Narendra Modi is simply incredible. This was revealed by a C Voter-India Tracker survey conducted soon after the speech was delivered. Close to 60%, that is 3 out of every 5 Indians, stated they were completely satisfied with the speech delivered by the prime minster. Another 10.6% were somewhat satisfied with his speech. Just about 10% were completely dissatisfied with his speech. Effectively, more than 70% were happy with Mod’s speech while about 14% were unhappy. India Tracker describes this popularity as incredible because Modi has been prime minister since 2014 and there seems to be no sign of strong antI incumbency sentiments. It seems even more incredible because the ordinary Indian is still being battered by inflation and unemployment. In fact, C Voter conducted the Mood of the Nation survey that has just been published by the magazine India Today. According to it, respondents singled out inflation and unemployment as the two biggest failures of the Narendra Modi regime. And yet he remains popular. Compare that with how unpopular the Dr Manmohan Singh led UPA-2 regime had become in its eight year. Perhaps the absence of big ticket corruption in public perception explains this. Or there may be other factors involved.
As the accompanying chart shows, a majority of Indians seem convinced that Modi is all set to win a record equalling third consecutive Lok Sabha election. Only Jawaharlal Nehru has done that in 75 years of independent India. An “incredible” 68.8% of respondents, well above two thirds, feel that Modi will win again in 2024 and deliver more speeches from the Red Fort. Even his opponents seem resigned to that, with almost 54% of opposition voters agreeing with the contention, while 88.6% of NDA supporters were confident of the same outcome. In virtually every category, Modi s seen as the winner of 2024. By all yard sticks, to repeat again, that is incredible.
