Modi needs to pick up from where he started in 2014

Elections in the world’s biggest democracy is one of the world’s most expensive.The six-week long grant polling narrative has come at the cost of some $7bn, according to the New Delhi-based Centre for Media Studies. In a country where about 60% of the population lives on around $3 a day, it amounts to roughly $8 spent per voter.About $6.5bn was spent during the US presidential and congressional races in 2016.Incumbent Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has powered to victory in the 2019 general elections with a decisive majority of 303 of the 542 seats in parliament. The BJP-led National Democratic Alliance won 353 seats. Modi, for sure, has evolved since he first contested India’s top office five years ago.After winning the country’s biggest electoral mandate in three decades, he had some initial success pushing reforms. Six of nine major measures — including deregulating diesel prices and opening the coal sector to foreign investment — came in the administration’s first year, according to the Washington, DC-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.Things slowed down after that. As Modi’s ratings dipped during his tenure, reform talks gave way to populist pledges of quotas for government jobs, income support for indebted farmers, a massive health insurance programme and vows to punish arch-rival Pakistan.Make no mistake, there are pressing challenges facing Modi, right from the start.The economy is in need of stimulus. Consumer spending has taken a knock as a crisis among shadow banks curbed lending. Investments have slowed and economists are forecasting growth of 6.5% in the three months to March, the slowest pace since mid-2017.One of the government’s key failures in its first term was the lack of job creation, especially for young people. Questions have for long been raised about Modi’s ability to fulfil his 10mn-jobs-a-year, first-term campaign pledge.One study put the unemployment rate at a 45-year high and India will have the world’s biggest labour force by 2027. India’s economy is set for a major boost if Modi follows through with key campaign promises following his party’s sweeping election victory. The BJP pledged cash handouts to farmers, $1.44tn to build roads, railways and other infrastructure, a boost to manufacturing, and a doubling in exports. But finding the money to pay for the populist pledges will be Modi’s immediate challenge. That means much more dynamic economic reforms, not less. Modi has never disguised his conviction that India needs to promote its Hindu heritage more loudly. In power, he has at least tolerated a rising strain of communal prejudice encouraged by BJP supporters and party officials. Modi, one of India’s most polarising politicians, however, talked of inclusion and trust on Saturday. “Whatever religious rituals we follow at home, when we walk out we are only devotees of Mother India,” he said.In his first term, Modi talked about development and growth. In his second, he needs to pick up from where he started in 2014, not where he left off in 2019.