Banking on ModiJug Suraiya 21 March 2014, 02:36 PM IST 0 inShare 8 Will AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal threaten to put Adam Gilmour, Citigroup head Asia-Pacific currency and derivatives sales, into jail for saying that if Narendra Modi becomes India’s next prime minister the weak rupee — which had dropped to an all-time low of over 68 to the US dollar — will strengthen by some 35% to become 40 to the dollar? Kejriwal had said that he would imprison representatives of some TV news channels for tom-tomming Modi in particular and the BJP in general while showing AAP in a poor light. Now that a multinational finance manager has hailed NaMo as the potential saviour of the sagging Indian economy, what will Kejri’s reaction be? Or, for that matter, what will be the reaction of the Gujarat chief minister’s critics, who some say number as many as do his admirers? Gilmour was unstinted in his praise for Modi as the man most likely to help kick-start the country’s fortunes, saying “The market view is that if Modi gets in, it will be a game-changer. We always take politics with a pinch of salt, with the rare exception of India, where it’s going to really make a difference.” On the other hand, the banker said that if the upcoming elections resulted in the ‘worst-case’ scenario of a weak coalition, it could see the Indian rupee fall below its record low of Rs 68.83 against the US dollar. Gilmour is not the first foreign financial analyst who’s given his personal thumbs-up sign in favour of the politically controversial saffron ‘strong man’. Earlier, a former head of Goldman Sachs had expressed similar views about Modi, and the company itself in its official report had highlighted the Gujarat chief minister as being pivotal to India’s hopes of economic recovery. Predictably, Modi’s opponents, mainly in the Congress party, had objected to foreign commercial interests meddling in India’s political affairs. However, like it or not, Modi is increasingly being seen, both within the country and abroad, as some sort of superhero who will somehow put the country’s devalued economy back on the fast track of a high growth rate. After five years of UPA-II’s policy inertia, it widely believed that what India needs is ‘strong’ and decisive leadership to once again forge ahead, and that the best person for that job is Modi. However, sceptics — and there are not a few of them — point to several flaws in this perception. Quite apart from his alleged involvement in the 2002 riots in Gujarat — neither his guilt nor his innocence have been conclusively proved — Modi’s so-called ‘Gujarat model’ of development has been critiqued under several heads. Gujarat’s social indices in terms of primary healthcare and nutrition, particularly among minority communities, are among the poorest in the country. Modi has also been accused of ‘crony capitalism’ favouring Reliance Industries and the Adani group of companies. Moreover, the chief minister’s uncompromising personality and his micro-managerial style of functioning are seen as handicaps to his being a prime minister capable of successfully bringing together the many divergent, often conflicting, views and aspirations inevitable in a polity as diverse as India’s. That said, Modi continues to be the front-runner in the prime ministerial stakes, so far, with a lot of people — like Citigroup’s Gilmour — literally banking on him. jug.suraiya@timesgroup
Posted on: Sat, 22 Mar 2014 07:37:53 +0000
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