India Prime Minister Narendra Modi gestures during his victory speech at the BJP headquarters in New Delhi (Prakash Singh/AFP)

Preparations at the Rashtriya Bhawan are underway to host the significant swearing-in ceremony of India’s Prime Minister (PM) elect, for a second consecutive term, and his new Council of Ministers that would be heading the 17thLok Sabha, results to which were declared last Thursday, May 30th, 2019.

A cursory glance at recent political history of India, the world’s largest democracy, with perhaps the youngest population, and an emerging economic giant, reveals that this is the first instance since the days of ex-PMs Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi that citizens have voted with their feet to give a ruling PM a much larger mandate than what he had attained in the previous “aam chunav” (General Elections), riding high on the continuum of the Modi Wave, amply aided by a strong pro-incumbency sentiment, made most by a solidly organized BJP & RSS machinery.

This is evident from key figures of 2019 electoral tally – Out of 1.3 billion citizens, 613,000,000 adult voters of which 292,400,000 were women, exercised their franchise in a free and fair manner to elect representatives for 543 Parliamentary seats, of which Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won 303 seats, 21 more than its 2014 tally, and its allies took 49 seats, making a total of 352 seats for the ruling BJP headed National Democratic Alliance (NDA) coalition.

The closest mark any opposition party could manage was 52 seats, grabbed by Indian National Congress (INC) led by Rahul Gandhi, though technically speaking it too fits the bill of “an improvement” from 44 seat mark of 2014.

Concluding from an overall scrutiny of vote shares and voting patterns, BJP enjoys an enormous lead in registering maximum vote share, particularly in the poorest districts, thereby throwing light on tangible value of the Modi Brand that enabled a clear transcendence of class, caste and religious fault lines that had hitherto divided the country’s voting class.

In Modi’s own words it was chemistry that defied arithmetic and unified India!

While this has also been likened to the rise of cultural nationalism and conservative right-wing politics on a global scale, yet the with the heat and dust settled on the electoral front, there is shift in focus, to questions such as whether the winner would be able to deliver, the course of Team Modi 2.0, issues it would hold paramount, kind of reforms as much as the pace at which it is released and standards of governance.

Given the past record, it would be fair to ascribe to Modi the epithets of an economic experimenter or modernizer, definitions varying on the sides one is aligned to,  as much as an economic populist.

On the domestic front, Modi 1.0 had unfolded many high potential schemes — Make In India, Digital India, Adhaar, Ujjwala, Clean India and Goods & Services Tax (GST) that had caught the imagination of domestic and international businesses, but as regards the abrupt and arbitrary demonetization policy, it could only address the angst of the dispossessed against the corrupt without actually wiping it out from India’s slate.

Between hope and pragmatism is a reality check that can be painful from the perspective of long term gains

So the team Modi 2.0, with a stupendous recharge of its batteries, will be faced with incorporating emerging technologies, fresher initiatives with its hold on Indian Inc and citizens to live up to their expectations, without indulging in costly and superficial exercises.

Additionally, to attract foreign and domestic investments, for employment generation and kick-starting a sluggish economy, significant monetary policies would be required to accompany policy announcements.

A new industrial policy, incentives to promote manufacturing in key employment generating sectors, rationalisation of direct tax rates, asset creation, enhancement of employment opportunities, speeding up of mega-infrastructure projects across sectors, comprehensive regulatory reforms for key GDP contributing sectors, easing the process of doing business, relaxation of laws and rules, digitisation of data and processes, attracting foreign and private domestic investment, and, luring foreign firms that have been affected by US-China trade war to set up base in India are amongst the hundreds of suggestions that are said to be reaching the office of the PM-elect.

Already Modi 2.0 is holding discussions with the industry for implementation drives in the first 100 days of the new government.

However, it would be too much to expect Modi to give up political control over lending decisions and there are possibilities of enhanced rural spending and handouts to support small and medium-sized enterprises.

Other than these there will be energy-expends in resolving existing flashpoints, such as India’s data protection law which may feature in its trade disputes with the US, building of the Ram Temple, a sub judice matter, abrogation of Article 35A pertaining to annulling of special rights to residents of Jammu and Kashmir and Article 370 that gives autonomous status to J&K, promulgation of Uniform Civil Code for all citizens, unleashing land, legal and labour reforms, expansion in infrastructure, massive rural development, national urban mission, affordable housing program for the poor, expansion of smart cities beyond 100 number, instituting scholarship programs and a national education policy, more toughness on economic offenders, streamlining GST regime, buttressing Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code control, and urgent modernization of military to name a few.

On the core area of foreign policy and diplomacy that has been a core achievement of Modi 1.0 there is expected to be further scaling up to improve India’s leverage in geopolitics and global policy-making and to this end if the introduction of interoperability is on the anvil, there are also meetings lined up with leaders of different nations as well as acceptance of invitations to visit India by many world leaders.

It is remarkable to see Modi reaching out to immediate South Asian neighbors vis a vis international heavyweights, and who will be gracing his inauguration.

Interestingly, while SAARC leaders have been invited to his oath-taking ceremony the Pakistani counterpart Imran Khan has been purposely given the miss, perhaps to underline the regime’s message to Islamabad that establishing conducive environment before talks would be a prerequisite.

But even as the Pakistani side tested its Shaheen-II, a medium-range ballistic missile, on May 22, it sent out feelers to India for revival of talks that were drastically hit after the worst ever attack by Pakistan based terrorists in Pulwama on Indian soil, and then India’s retaliatory counterstrike and rallying of world community against Pakistan’s sponsoring of terror outfits, more so the Jaish-e-Mohammad.

This hardline posture that has reaped electoral dividends for the BJP is unlikely to soften in the near future as assembly elections in J&K are due in year-end, without of course negating the possibility of engagements, backdoor channels, private engagements and also an armed one, short of triggering a nuclear crisis, if Pakistani terrorists come up to repeating some great mischief.

With a Lok Sabha mandate so extraordinaire and a majority in the Upper House looking imminent, the responsibility of leaving behind a legacy must energize Modi to metamorphose from a seasoned politician to a statesman, one that an aspirational, benign and inclusive India will ever be thankful for reposing their faith in.

On this touchstone will be tested the fundamental truth of his vision, “Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas, Sabka Vishwas (With everybody, for everybody, and with everybody’s trust)” for a “New India” deriving its strength from developmental politics.