After 50 days of “pain” will come the “gain”, so said Prime Minister Narendra Modi on 13 November in his public speeches in Goa and Belgaum.
The people have kept the faith in Modi’s promise beyond the expectations of even the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Bank officials, lawyers and businessmen getting caught with tranches of currency notes, and visuals of old currency notes being burnt or thrown in ponds has satisfied the public need to see those with black money suffer.
Visuals in the media of queues outside ATMs (Automated Teller Machines) in big cities like Delhi and Mumbai have also served the same purpose – “the rich” have suffered.
But now comes the test for the Modi government, primarily for the PM himself since he has taken ownership of the note ban decision.
From now to elections in five states, particularly Uttar Pradesh from mid-February onwards, the Modi government needs to keep the political narrative in its favour, particularly as the expected gains are unlikely to match the initial estimates.
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The PM’s fist post demonetisation interview will be shown today at 8pm on the TV Today network. The PM is also expected to deliver an address to the nation either on Friday or on the New Year’s Eve. This will be followed by a huge public rally in Lucknow on 2 January.
It is expected that the PM will announce enough sops to outfox the opposition from claiming, in the run up to the polls to five states, that note ban was yet another chunavi jumla, or election slogan, never to be fulfilled.
The Election Commission is likely to announce the poll dates by 4 January, and the elections are likely to take place from mid-February to mid-March. The Election Commission model code of conduct will come into force immediately after the announcement of poll dates.
Once the poll dates are announced, the next opportunity for the government to reach out to the people will be in the Budget, to be presented on 1 February, weeks before the first phase of the polls in Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Uttarakhand, Manipur and Goa.
The big question is whether the PM will announce that the government has recovered enough money to provide free medicines, farm loan waiver and significant cash transfers in their bank accounts? These are the immediate gains that people are likely to expect. Anything else, like building of more schools and hospitals, have long gestation periods and there is enough cynicism among the masses about such announcements.
The next 50 days could define the rest of Prime Minister Modi's tenure, and whether he would be able to lead his party to a successful re-election bid in 2019.