Under Modi, Wealth is growing SLOWER than under Manmohan Singh

One metric that is indicator of how voters are feeling is wealth. We lay down our calculations with many caveats so please do understand this is not a perfect calculation. Main reason being we wanted to use data as closest to date as possible and data is not available as of today for all asset classes. So, we have innovated though one can say with high confidence that overall conclusion will not change even if all data was available as of today.

Bank Deposits (October 31st/November 30th ) + Mutual Funds (September 30th) + Life Insurance AUM (March 31st)

 

2010 November – $ 1324 billion

2014 April – $ 1858 billion

2018 October – $ 2475 billion

 

Growth in Wealth (Excluding Real Estate and Gold), Manmohan Singh – Last 42 months – 40%

Growth in Wealth (Excluding Real Estate and Gold), Narendra Modi – Last 42 months -33%

While there is no precise estimate for Real estate or Gold, all we know is that Real estate market has been in a slump since 2014 while Gold which doubled in price between 2009 and 2013 has grown by a total of 10% between 2013 and 2018.

One can confidently say that as a country, growth in FINANCIAL wealth has slowed down since Mr. Modi has come to power 

*Sources are indicated at the bottom of the article

* 2018 data includes Insurance premiums collected till date and an 8% applied over AUM of 2018 March 31st. (That is NIFTY returns). In reality, this will be lower

Implications

Risks

  1. The % of swing voters will increase across all States whose economies are underperforming (and this will apply even to Opposition ruled States like Odisha, Bengal, Kerala etc)

  2. Whether Middle class will hurt the BJP or not will depend on how Opposition targets middle class (Currently no party is interested in Middle Class issues)

  3. Farmers (who have struggled most due to lower income growth) will be the biggest swinging vote block in 201 (though caste and candidate will also continue to be crucial

  4. Apart from what the Opposition can offer, their success will also depend on how closely they collaborate across the country (This is a known factor now)

Defence

  1. Mr. Modi’s defence comes from poor voters in the Hindi speaking regions who form a much larger proportion of the population and have gained from the PM’s schemes. This will be less impactful in the more affluent Western and Southern States

  2. Mr. Modi’s defence will come from the likely lack of Opposition Cooperation due to the emergence of a likely third front involving KCR, Naveen, Mamata and others.

  3. Inflation and lack of serious corruption investigations against the current Government will also be a strong defence against the Opposition parties which are mired in scandals

  4. The increasing consolidation of OBC voters behind Modi along with continued strength amongst many upper caste voting blocks will also be a serious defence for the Modi Government.

In sum, statistics is one thing, perception is another. Once statistics becomes perception, it is anyone’s game in 2019.

 

Sources

Bank Deposit data is from RBI Monthly Bulletins (Includes both current and savings)

AUM Data is from AMFI (Includes both household and Corporate)

Insurance AUM data is from Life Council and IRDA

USD-INR rates are from RBI currency reference page (Exchange Value used – Nov 2010, April 2014, December 2018)

Gold performance data is from Bank Bazaar

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