(DNA)
In a startling departure from convention, Congress leader Jairam Ramesh said it was time to recognise that Modi’s governance model wasn’t a ‘complete negative story’ and that ‘demonizing him all the time is not going to help’. Speaking at a book launch on Wednesday, Ramesh said it was time to recognise that over 30% of the electorate voted for Modi. The BJP got 37.4% of votes in the 2019 elections with NDA getting 45%.
He made the remarks on Wednesday at a book launch. He said: “He (PM Modi) talks in a language that connects him with the people. Unless we recognize that he is doing things which people recognise and which have not been done in the past, we are not going to be able to confront this guy.” He clarified that he wasn’t asking people to praise or applaud the PM but urged the political class to recognise the traits he had brought to governance.
“Let me tell you it is not a completely negative story when it comes to economics of the governance, the politics of the governance is completely different,” said the noted economist, adding “the social relations that have been created out of his governance model is also completely different”. On the Pradhan Mantri Ujwala Yojana he said: “In 2019, all of us in the political discourse made fun of one or two of his programmes, but it has turned out in all electoral studies that the PMUJ is one single program which has been able to connect him with crores and crores of women and given him the political traction which he didn’t have in 2014.”
“Now if we are going to run this down and say this is all hocus pocus and say these are wrong numbers, we are not going to confront this guy,” he cautioned. He also warned that people are not relating to the ‘current distress to his presence’.
