With the total number of seats reduced, largely in the Hindi belt, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and the government seem to have done a U-turn in their economic thinking and policy – moving away from the big capitalist-driven industry and industrial captains towards tiny, and small and medium sector for employment generation.
The BJP has, perhaps, realised the benefits of putting money in the hands of the masses so that demand picks up in the economy which will kickstart activities along the chain.
[Also read: Union Budget: A tale of two states – Andhra Pradesh and Bihar – THE NEWS PORTER]
In short, the focus on the small-scale sector and MSMEs and the poor and the deprived in the budget presented Tuesday is, in other words, a sort of an admission of faulty driving of the economy. The admission comes after 10 years of driving the economy in a direction and at a pace that has left most of the population suffering in economic misery.
The electoral shock that the poor, the marginalised and the deprived sections gave to the ruling dispensation forced it to depend on regional satraps to survive in power forcing Prime Minister Narendra Modi to listen to his allies and give in to their demands, at least to the extent that he was not willing to when he was the master of all that he surveyed by winning a majority of his own.
The results that brought the opposition closer to the ruling party in terms of numbers, unlike in the two previous Lok Sabha elections, also showed that the opposition was right in articulating the plight of the people and that people found the opposition to be raising their voice and they rallied around the opposition.
In many places in north India, people pooled money to attend Congress rallies and even campaigned for the party themselves so much so that it seemed as if the people were fighting the elections against the BJP.
This is what perhaps explains the change of heart, and stance of the ruling BJP which today speaks the language of the Left when it comes to pro-people programmes to an extent that it even went on to “copy-paste” ideas from the Congress manifesto that was prepared after consultations with the masses.
Analysts point out that some of the budget proposals from the Union Finance Minister appeared to be copy-paste of promised schemes of the opposition party.
Another interesting thing that can be noticed these days is that pressure groups, trade unions and associations of trade and people prefer to call on the Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi to tell their concerns, issues and problems to him, in the hope that if he raises them, the government immediately acts even if to steal the thunder from the Congress leader.
So, the smarter ones have found a foolproof plan to get the government’s ear – route their pleas through the LOP.
This is an Opinion piece, and the views are the author’s own. The News Porter bears no responsibility for the same
