Image dented, tough road ahead for govt

Vibha Sharma
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, May 29

PM Narendra Modi will complete two years of his second term in office tomorrow.

What made the first year of Modi 2.0 tough was the party’s poor show in Maharashtra, Jharkhand, Delhi, and Haryana, and then there were protests over the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019.

Things went from bad to worse last year with the farmers protesting against the three farm laws and questions being raised over the handling/management of the second wave of Covid by the Modi government.

As the PM completes one more year in power amid what has been described as “once in a century pandemic”, the going for him and his party is expected to get tough. In the past year, the BJP lost one state it had been politically investing in for five years, West Bengal, and is now facing an uphill task in one of the most crucial states in the country — Uttar Pradesh.

Restoring the confidence of people will be one of the biggest challenges before the PM. The future of BJP governments in poll-bound states like UP, Gujarat and Uttarakhand depends on how well he addresses the issues concerning the people, and compensates those who suffered due to the deadly second wave. Observers say the pandemic has exposed huge gaps, denting the reputation of the PM and party. The BJP is not celebrating his seventh year in power with its usual blitzkrieg.