Modi could not deliver magic for Indians, Chinese media says after BJP’s Assembly poll rout

Beijing, Dec 17: The results of the recently held Assembly elections in five states will make the ruling BJP uncertain over winning the general elections of 2019, an op-ed in China's Global Times said on Sunday, December 16. The saffron party failed to win a single of the five states of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Telangana and Mizoram and lost the first three. Of the three, the BJP ruled MP and Chhattisgarh for 15 consecutive years. They lost the three states in the Hindi heartland to the Congress, a party they had been routinely defeating under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and party president Amit Shah over the last few years.

"The battering delivered to the Bhratiya Janata Party in the recent Indian state elections has got the leadership thinking - will it be able to retain its parliamentary majority in New Delhi in 2019? After some other state elections earlier in the year returned a favorable mandate to the ruling party that has Prime Minister Narendra Modi as its frontrunner, senior BJP leaders thought next year's vote will be easy to win, but the elections results in five states - Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, Telangana, and Mizoram announced on December 11 have forced it to introspect. BJP lost to the Congress party in three states where it was in power for years," the Global Times op-ed said.

The op-ed added that Modi undertook a number of measures to improve the administration, infrastructure and the investment scenario besides introducing the Goods and Services Tax aiming a unified tax structure in the country but yet at the end of day, India's high GDP under the Modi regime was not significantly higher than it was under the government of his predecessor Manmohan Singh and people's expectations were not fulfilled the way they would have liked.

"Indians had very high expectations of Modi but found he could not work the magic. Economic reforms take time to deliver but citizens were not ready to wait," the op-ed said.

It also said while the Modi government invested more in infrastructure and city services that bolstered its economic growth to better even a country like France's record to become the world's sixth largest economy earlier this year, the condition of its farmers remained poor and they accused the Modi government of doing little for agriculture and rural uplift.