Mumbai : While stating that the honeymoon period of the Modi government is far from over, senior journalist Rajdeep Sardesai said here on Friday that the sense of energetic dynamism that emanates from the way Prime Minister Narendra Modi carries himself has indeed instilled hope.
“It is not that Modi has been doing extraordinarily charismatic things, which the past prime ministers of India have never done before. But he has been able to identify himself with everything positive in the past one year and a sense of energetic dynamism, which infused hope in the industry, the people,” Sardesai said.
He also warned that the tight control over his government, which is seen as Modi’s biggest achievement, might turn out to be his biggest weakness, as the tight control might drive people away from taking decisions. He cited the inaction of the government over the unseasonal rains as a proof of what he said.
Sardesai was speaking at a panel discussion, titled ‘One year of Modi sarkar’, organised by the Mumbai Press Club to understand the political economy the nation has seen in the past year. Prakash Akolkar, the president of the Press Club and political editor of ‘Sakal’, along with Rohit Chandavarkar, the political editor of Economic Times, moderated the discussion.
Senior political columnist and the founder of Merchant Media, Minhaz Merchant, pointed out that private equity investment has gone up phenomenally during the past one year. He saw this as an indication of the hope people still hold with Modi’s leadership. He also expressed surprise over the Congress targeting Modi with the line ‘suit-boot ki sarkar’ when actually people sense that Modi has successfully kept industrialists from getting any kind of unlawful benefits or influence.
Merchant also expressed displeasure over the policies Modi has adopted in relation to Pakistan, the continuation of regressive taxation and undermining of institutions like the CVC, CIC etc.
