Modi’s Demeanour Reveals His Mounting Disquiet
Modi’s Demeanour Reveals His Mounting Disquiet
Opinion | "Modi himself remains popular but his party’s candidates are being met largely with apathy, if not outright disdain," writes Shashi Tharoor.
By: SHASHI THAROOR
As India’s general election enters its second month, most conventional expectations have already been upended. Complacent pundits had long ago concluded that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) would win comfortably. But two phases into the seven-phase election — with some 190 constituencies having already cast their votes — the situation no longer looks quite that simple.
India’s autonomous Election Commission prohibits the publication of any exit polls until all seven phases of voting have concluded. (That will happen on June 1, with the result announced on June 4). But unofficial readings of voter sentiment strongly indicate that things are not going the BJP’s way. The public, it seems, has simply not been given enough reason to vote for the party a third time.
(Shashi Tharoor, a former UN under-secretary-general and former Indian Minister of State for External Affairs and Minister of State for Human Resource Development, is an MP for the Indian National Congress. He is the author, most recently, of Ambedkar: A Life (Aleph Book Company, 2022). This is an opinion piece. The views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)
(This commentary originally appeared in Project Syndicate and has been republished in collaboration with The Quint. Read the original piece here.)
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