The kind of vision that Modi envisaged and the gusto with which he desired to achieve it required a Cabinet of exceptional talent, particularly in key fields like human resource development, labour and employment, industry, commerce, skill development, culture, health and MSMEs — right choices in these portfolios would have provided a team to follow a coherent and mutually reinforcing direction for the fulfilment of the vision. Instead, he has ministers who are narrow-minded and vociferous about Hindutva that is against the concept of sabka saath, sabka vikas. Similarly, some states such as UP have chief ministers who need to prioritise development rather than propagation of misunderstood Hindutva. When they are given the role of vote winners, doubts about adherence to the ideals of Mahatma Gandhi and Dr B R Ambedkar arise. The result is that the good work done by the government is overshadowed by the hate-filled utterances and actions by his party’s leaders about cow protection, beef eating and the like. Modi should convince them about the futility of it. Today people vote for Modi and not his party and his popularity ranking is still the highest — he should use his stature to reform his party and government to win the race next year.
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