STRIKING A SOUR NOTE

The MOTN survey highlights two clear obstacles that the Modi government will have to negotiate going into the 2024 general election-high inflation and the lack of jobs 

- M.G. ARUN

The years 2020 to 2022 saw the country’s economy challenged by the Covid-19 pandemic in the second term of the Narendra Modi government, but 2023 has witnessed a slow revival that also promised to be sustainable. Growing at 7.2 per cent in FY23, the country proved to be one of the few bright spots on the global horizon, even as the developed world showed signs of a slowdown. With India’s economy poised to grow at around 6 per cent in the current fiscal, the recovery would, in many eyes, seem sustainable. Also, with Japan and Germany continuing to lag, India could even take the third spot among the world’s largest economies, after the US and China. However, a host of challenges, including inflation and job creation, threaten to upset any sustained growth in the near term. The latest Mood of the Nation (MOTN) poll has, in fact, captured some of the larger concerns that exist on the ground. To a question on the BJP-led NDA government’s handling of the economy, only 46.6 per cent of the respondents responded with outstanding or good, the lowest-ever percentage in all the MOTN surveys since January 2016. It compared poorly with the survey in January this year, when 53.9 per cent rated the Modi government’s handling of the economy as outstanding or good. It was also way below the response in January 2021 where, in the midst of the Covid pandemic, as many as 66 per cent had hailed the government. The relief measures extended by the government to the poorer sections as well as the micro, small and medium scale enterprises (MSMEs) were well acknowledged then, but now their impact has worn off. The government will, therefore, need to show more action on the ground to generate a feelgood factor, be it by creating new jobs or reining in runaway prices.