The Lion From Gujarat
A year back in 2014, riding on the Narendra Damodardas Modi wave, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) stormed into citadel Delhi with a mandate the saffron party never got in its history. A mandate that changed the political landscape of the country, and gave the nation a stable, non-coalition government for the first time in 25 years.
With the humungous mandate that he got, Modi not only impressed and silenced his critics, but also proved his unchallenged hold on the party. From being the party’s poster boy to the prime ministerial candidate, Modi was BJP’s torchbearer and still remains the number one political khiladi (player) in the country.
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Because one year down the line, the Modi magic remains intact, showing little signs of wearing down and the man from Gujarat remains the country’s most preferred man for India’s top post of Prime Minister, according to an exclusive survey by Focus News with IPSOS.
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The exclusive survey clearly says that after 365 days in power, Modi is definitely most suited for the top job and enjoys equal popularity in urban and rural India. And with 63 per cent of respondents in the survey giving Modi the thumbs up, his nearest rival lags way behind at 16 per cent. But there lies a catch. Because the common man has given Aam Aadmi Party leader and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal the thumbs up to be Modi’s main political rival, taking the mantle away from the prince of Congress, Rahul Gandhi.
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The Man With The Midas Touch
The most talked-about politician, controversy’s first child and anti-corruption crusader Arvind Kejriwal’s entry into the political arena was no less dramatic than a blockbuster Bollywood movie. Kejriwal’s anointment as the Delhi CM, his sudden exit after 49 days were not enough to shake the trust that Delhi showered on the former Indian Revenue Service officer to give him a thumping majority in Delhi in 2015, leaving Modi’s BJP with just 3 seats.
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In between, Kejriwal tried to enter national politics by challenging Modi in Varanasi in the general elections of 2014, but fell flat on his face. But he rose like the phoenix in the Delhi assembly elections in 2015.
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The landslide victory in Delhi by AAP was seen as the defeat of Modi and his lieutenant-in-chief and BJP president Amit Shah’s strategic brain and political acumen. The FocusNews-IPSOS survey clearly shows the Kejriwal is now Modi’s main political competitor, with 16 per cent of the respondents putting their weight behind him.
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The Prince Of The Pauper
But where does that leave a new, apparently tough-talking, forever the prince-in-waiting, sabbatical-returned Rahul Gandhi. Failure, in electoral politics, has haunted the Congress vice-president for some time now, and many blamed him for the rout in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, where the Congress tally came down to 44 seats in the lower house of the parliament.
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It was fodder enough to doubt the party’s future under his leadership. The heavy criticism that rahul drew not only from within his party’s old leadership but across the nation made one think whether the Congress party needs a person with a non-Gandhi surname at the helm.
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As the Modi started making his mark in India and left his stamp on the diplomatic relations with different countries, Rahul slowly withdrew himself from public life, apparently went into introspection mode and a sabbatical, what followed was some more criticism.
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Could Rahul not handle the pressure? Was Rahul angry with his party’s old guards? Why was Rahul shying away from taking the responsibility of his party’s failure at the general elections?
But after a 55-day long sabbatical, Rahul returned and apparently returned a new man – a man with an aggression never seen before even without his sleeves rolled up.
Rahul’s ‘suit boot ki sarkar’ jibe at the Modi government in the parliament, his criticism of PM Modi’s foreign visits definitely made the headlines but as the FocusNews-Ipsos survey shows, were not impactful enough to any political damage to ‘Modi sarkar’.
His own popularity as a PM material has gone down to a meagre 8 percent. Worse still, only 27 percent people who had voted for congress in 2014 general elections, say that they will still stick to Rahul. The rest is divided between Modi, Kejriwal and his mother Sonia Gandhi. 36 per cent of those who voted for Congress in 2014 also think that Modi is the best candidate for PM while 13 per cent go with Kejriwal over Rahul and 16 per cent would like to vote for his mother Sonia and not him.
(with Swati Joshi)
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