As India continues to grapple with the third wave of the coronavirus pandemic with daily Covid-19 cases nearing the 3.5 lakh mark and five important state assembly elections coming up, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and its supporters must have taken much heart from a recent survey by a reputable organisation which indicated that a majority of Indians were satisfied with the performance of the Narendra Modi government and an even bigger majority thought Prime Minister Modi’s performance was outstanding as the top executive of the nation.
That explains why the 71-year-old BJP boss was deemed by far best suited to be the next PM of India, with Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee being an utterly – almost inconsequentially – distant second and third choice, respectively.
Thanks to the successful implementation of a massive Covid vaccination drive and all the steps that his government has taken so far, using lessons learnt from the second wave to minimise the scale and intensity of the third one, Prime Minister Modi stands practically unrivalled now as a national-level leader.
However, one man – no matter how extraordinary – does not make a party and cannot assure its political future single-handedly. While the BJP is doing well as the ruling party led by PM Modi at the Centre, the same may not be the case at the state level. Among the top eight Chief Ministers of the country in terms of popularity in their respective home states (those who have a positive rating of over 50% in the survey), there is just one – Assam’s Himanta Biswa Sarma – from the BJP.
All other BJP CMs, including the ones in poll-bound Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand, received low ratings (ranging from an abject 27% to an uninspiring 50%). That is alarmingThat is alarming considering the party is in power, either on its own or with a coalition, in around two-thirds of India.
The BJP top brass perhaps needs to analyse why the party’s performance at the Centre is not getting replicated at the state level. Prime Minister Modi’s charisma may be a hard act to follow, but these BJP CMs can certainly aspire to the diligence with which their PM works and the discretion with which he builds a high-performance team of bureaucrats and political leaders.
Or they can look for inspiration from the man who was rated in the survey as the most popular and best performing CM of the country, not just this year but also the previous one: Biju Janata Dal supremo Naveen Patnaik.
Some seasoned political pundits point to the five-time Chief Minister’s brilliantly formulated and flawlessly executed policy of equidistance from the BJP and Congress as being a founding pillar of his enduring success.
Others reckon his unparalleled knack for providing issue-based support to the Centre – matters that he deems to be in line with his values, principles and policies, not to mention his country’s and state’s interests – continues to boost his national stature and his popularity in Odisha.
Then, of course, is the most widely held notion about his well-thought-out welfare schemes, clean personal image and people-friendly governance model being the biggest factors behind his political and electoral invincibility.
Their persona and modus operandi as political leaders might be different as chalk and cheese – but as inspirational leaders who are worth emulating, PM Modi and CM Patnaik are two sides of the same coin.
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