Where is PM Modi?

Something has changed

  1. PM Modi gave a nationally televised address close to the end of every lockdown phase, but on May 29th, he switched to a letter
  2. Before every Lockdown, it was PM Modi who spoke to the CMs, but on May 28th, it was Amit Shah

Google Trends shows us this in the form of numbers. Here is the search index for PM Modi

March 18th -10

April 18th – 21

May 18th – 17

June 4th – 12

Search levels are now at almost the levels of Pre-Corona and they have been dipping since second week of May. The main reason being a conscious effort by the Prime Minister not to be actively associated with the crisis (as we saw above)

Why is the PM Modi the smartest politician in India? It is because no one understands not just the pulse of average Indians but also their emotions better than PM Modi. That is also why he is a master communicator, he expresses in exactly the way the average voter understands.

What are average citizens feeling?

  1. RBI’s consumer confidence survey says that Consumer confidence collapsed in May 2020, with the current situation index (CSI) touching historic low and the one year ahead future expectations index (FEI)2 also recording a sharp fall, entering the zone of pessimism
  2. Search for Anxiety had peaked in the second half of May and started falling from May 31st to levels closer to April 1st week
  3. Search for Depression which had hit a 3 year high and has remained close to those levels

What is the current situation on the ground?

  1. We hit an all time high of 10000+ new Corona cases yesterday
  2. While the stock market has started to recover, other countries have done a much better job. The economic recovery should begin only after unlock-1
  3. The big cities like Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai and Ahmedabad etc appear to be struggling to control Corona owing either to the demographics of the city or because of absence of investments in healthcare

So overall, the situation is not really great inspite of the effort of nearly 2 and half months. The realisation also is that the Centre can only do so much trying to control the situation, the states will have to do it. So whether the PM’s intention is to dissociate himself from such a negative situation by being visually absent is a matter of debate but the reality is the PM has stopped some patterns of the past few weeks. And whether he likes it or not, he will not be able to stay away from addressing the nation soon. If anytime the Citizens need motivation and courage from the PM, it is now!

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