Modi may face challenges implementing agenda nation-wide: Washington Post

Modi will face a testing time insofar as his promises of economic success, said the US daily

India's "Development Man" and the prime ministerial nominee of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Narendra Modi may face challenges implementing his agenda nation-wide, says a report in a US daily.

According to the Washington Post, which spoke to both his critics and supporters in Ahmedabad, Modi will face a testing time insofar as his promises of economic success.

Though he has transformed his arid state of Gujarat into a region that has wide and smooth roads, electrified villages, rising incomes and brand-name foreign investment, his supporters are hoping he can build on his successes and revive India's stalled economy.

Modi has fought this year's general elections on the plank of providing a new India, with an efficient, modern government free of corruption.

He pledged to build bullet trains, hydroelectric power plants, manufacturing hubs and dozens of cities, enabling India to rival China, the economic powerhouse next door.

But the downside of all these achievements, according to the Washington Post, is whether he can replicate Gujarat, where he faced little opposition, at the national level, where establishing control may be harder to assert.

His economic success notwithstanding, Modi's critics say Gujarat has made little progress on social problems like child malnutrition and maternal health. Also, his strident Hindu nationalism has left deep divisions between religious groups in the state of 60 million.

According to Hanif Lakdawala, a physician who works with the poor in one of the state's biggest slums, Modi will face a lot of difficulties if he does become India's next prime minister.

Dinesh Patel, an electronic services technician from the town of Anand, is, however, more optimistic, and declares that it would be great if a self-made man like Modi becomes the country's next prime minister.

Uday Mahurkar, a journalist and the author of a recent book about Modi, declares that the Gujarat Chief Minister is the right man for addressing India's economic crisis and helping the nation to capitalise on its own strengths.

Sebastian Morris, a professor at the Indian Institute of Management in Ahmedabad, beleieves that Modi's stewardship of Gujarat has resulted in significant benefits.