Narendra modi leaves ab vajpayee behind as bjp’s longest serving indian prime minister opportunities challenges beckon

Narendra modi leaves ab vajpayee behind as bjp’s longest serving indian prime minister opportunities challenges beckon

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has gone past Atal Bihari Vajpayee as the longest serving BJP and non-Congress PM. First, Vajpayee and now Modi have deflated the Congress argument that it is the natural party of governance in India and only Congress can provide stable governance. In his tenure stretching over a similar time period, Modi has also outdone Vajpayee in several areas.

Without being constrained by coalition compulsions, Modi has been able to implement long pending BJP agenda like Article 370 nullification and Ram Mandir construction, dismantling the Nehruvian consensus that governed Delhi which Vajpayee also largely subscribed to. Modi has also succeeded in weakening the Congress at the national and regional levels by increasing the BJP national footprint in eastern India and grabbing the nationalist and welfarist plank from the grand old party which gained India its independence. Even Lutyens Delhi is poised for an architectural overhaul.

With over three years left in his second term, Modi has much work left to do, especially in taking India into a new generation of economic reforms. China has also bared its fangs and edged out Pakistan as India’s primary national security threat, thus requiring a reset in defence strategies and modernisation. Finding funds to scale up public investment and defence spending will be Modi’s primary challenge with Covid puncturing the economy that was still reeling from the demonetisation exercise. The Modi tenure is proving to be a definitive epoch in India’s national evolution. Can he and BJP sustain the tempo amid the increasingly dire economic scenario?