The Pulse

After One Year, India Expects Modi to Deliver

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The Pulse

After One Year, India Expects Modi to Deliver

Narendra Modi’s first year in office showed a sharp disconnect between expectations and reality.

After One Year, India Expects Modi to Deliver
Credit: Flickr/ MEAphotogallery

One year is a long time in politics. No one understands that better than India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi. In 2014, he won with an historic landslide at the polls, decimating the Congress Party, which was left with just 44 of the 545 seats in the Lok Sabha. In the first few months after that triumph, the country was in complete awe of Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and it looked as though Congress didn’t have much of a future.

Twelve months later, Modi’s aura of invincibility has disappeared. The BJP has not won a single by-election since coming to power last May, suffering its biggest humiliation in Delhi elections in February, conceding defeat to the upstart Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). In Uttar Pradesh, a crucial state, where the party won 71 out 80 parliamentary seats, it has failed to win even a single seat in 16 by-elections. It’s the same story in West Bengal, the eastern Indian state, where the BJP was crushed in civic elections last month.

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