Ruchir Sharma's book on Indian elections ahead of '19

A global investor and writer of highly acclaimed books, Ruchir Sharma, will be publishing "Democracy on the Road", which is said to provide an insightful account of how Indian democracy works.

"India comes alive at election time and I have been fortunate to witness up close more than two dozen elections since the 1990s.

"There is no other travel experience that is as fascinating as journeying the Indian countryside during the campaign season. I am now very excited to share my impressions of how and why democracy works in our nation," Sharma said in a statement.

The announcement was made on Monday by Penguin Random House India, which said that there "has never been a book like this".

"'Democracy on the Road' is Ruchir Sharma's deeply insightful take on Indian politics. He has written the book India needs to read before the 2019 elections," said Penguin's Editor in Chief of Literary Publishing, Meru Gokhale.

"From Gujarat to Bengal, and from Punjab to Kerala, Sharma has traversed tens of thousands of miles along gleaming eight lane highways and, more often, pot-holed, monsoon-ravaged dirt roads, talking to ordinary voters and leading politicians in remote desert villages and leading megacities like Mumbai and Kolkata.

"Along the way he and his band of up to 20 leading journalists have interviewed many of the giants of Indian politics, and many of those interviews are excerpted here for the first time, offering telling and sometimes searing new portraits of figures from the Gandhis, Modi and Advani to Jayalalithaa, Mayawati, Kumar and Gehlot," the publisher added.

Sharma's most recent book "The Rise and Fall of Nations: Forces of Change in the Post-Crisis World" was released in June 2016 and instantly became a New York Times best seller.

"Democracy on the Road" will hit the stands in February 2019.

--IANS

ss/in/sed