A supremely confident-sounding Narendra Modi has made a strong pitch for a third term as the prime minister, telling Moneycontrol in an exclusive interview that he had no doubt that people will choose “correctly” again in the 2024 elections.
“In 2014, nobody knew Modi and yet they voted me in with such a huge mandate. Ten years on, they’ve seen a little bit of Modi everywhere — in the Chandrayaan Mission, in my recent visit to the US. Now that they know me well, I have no doubt that the people will choose correctly again,” the prime minister told Moneycontrol. This ties up with his party’s confidence of a historic mandate in 2024, given the prime minister’s popularity is at an all-time high along with people’s urge for a stable and strong government.
BJP feels that the even-bigger mandate in 2019 compared to 2014 reflected people’s growing confidence in the Modi-led government. Subsequently, there have been many successes for the country, like the Chandrayaan-3 mission, Aditya LI mission towards the Sun, the G20 Presidency and the PM’s successful foreign visits to the US and France among other countries. In short, the prime minister has a lot to say about India’s successes on the global stage. The BJP feels this is why people won’t trust an unstable coalition alliance like INDIA.
The PM in his interview stressed on the importance of a strong and stable government resulting in political stability that has enabled growth and deep structural reforms. “It is a privilege and honour for us that the people have placed unprecedented trust in us. They gave us a majority mandate not just once, but twice. The first mandate was about promises. The second, even bigger mandate, was about both performance and the future plan we had for the country,” PM told Moneycontrol.
“Due to this political stability, every other sector could see deep structural reforms. Economy, education, social empowerment, welfare delivery, infrastructure – I can keep on mentioning sectors that have seen reforms,” the PM said.
The BJP has been stressing on the economic growth in the country, low inflation and reducing poverty to maintain that the country is on the right track under Modi. The PM in his interview stressed how inflation in India remained lower than global inflation levels and the country continues its efforts to rein in inflation, like reducing LPG cylinder prices by Rs 200.
The PM, however, called out the ‘freebie culture’, saying irresponsible financial policies were bad for the economy and in the long-term, it was the poor who will suffer the most due to it. This seemed like an attack on the Congress, which is on a freebie-offering spree in poll-bound states.
Not Printing More Currency
The PM also told Moneycontrol that during the height of Covid-19, there was immense pressure on him to print more notes and inject more stimulus into the economy, as countries in the developed world had done. But he dug his heels in. “I didn’t do it. I knew I was taking a big political risk, but I diverted the money into Covid-19 management. That’s the reason price rise is not so much of a concern in India today as it is in the rest of the world,” says Modi.
India ultimately came up with two indigenous Covid-19 vaccines with the support of the government and was able to double-vaccinate its entire population in a record time.
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