Narendra Modi emerges most popular global leader

* 5 trillion-dollar economy, allotment of development projects will only impress the Southern states

Patibandla Srinivas

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Amaravati: In spite of the popularity of Prime Minister Narendra Modi as the strongest global leader, the Southern states in the country would only be impressed with the 5 trillion-dollar economy and development projects.

Modi is at the top in a recent survey conducted by a US-based consulting firm. Interestingly, the leaders like American President Joe Biden, French President Emmanuel Macron, and UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak are supporters of Narendra Modi.     

Contrary to the international surveys, Narendra Modi and his party BJP could not win the hearts of Southern states. It is visibly evident that the BJP has a meagre share of strength in the Southern States like Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Union Territories like Lakshadweep and Puducherry which is almost 20 percent in the country’s area. South India is also the largest in Gross Domestic Production and it has a higher literacy rate compared to North India.       

Indeed, the people of Southern states also feel that Narendra Modi is the strongest leader in many aspects. He introduced several revolutionary steps, especially like country’s digital economy, the introduction of GST, the construction of a new parliament house and Ram Mandir, maintaining relations with other countries, Swacchh Bharat, a new education policy promoting local languages, improved internal security, corruption-free government, revocation of Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir and maintaining peace, Citizenship Amendment Act are the Modi’s success stories.

The majority of people in the Southern states extended their support to Modi based on the issues. But the success stories of Narendra Modi were not carried forward to the grassroots level especially the masses in the rural areas. There is also a lapse in coordinating things with influenced sections and ground-level people.

Moreover, the people and political leadersof Southern states  are keen  on development. It is one of the reasons, the cities like Chennai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Kochi, and Coimbatore have been much more developed compared to any other cities in Northern states during the last several decades. Several leaders in South India like PV Narasimha Rao, NT Rama Rao, N Chandrababu Naidu, YS Rajasekhar Reddy, SM Krishna, Karunanidhi, Jaya Lalithaa always continued the development carrying forward the plans.

As a result, now the Southern states play a dominant role in the Indian economy. Recently, Telangana Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy requested Prime Minister Narendra Modi to cooperate towards development projects. He also mentioned the NDA government’s 5 trillion dollar economy will be possible for supporting cities like Hyderabad.

Coming to Andhra Pradesh, the new capital city for which the foundation stone was laid by Prime Minister Narendra Modi is now halted midway even though it is planned as the growth engine for the development of Andhra Pradesh. It will also play a crucial role in the Indian economy when there are investment opportunities.

A glance at the track record and history reveals that the people of Southern states always extended their unstinted support to development-oriented politics along with regional priorities. It is one of the reasons that though majority of people like leadership of Narendra Modi, they extend support only to regional parties. Senior Journalist and analyst M Shyam Sundar opined that now the time has come the NDA focused on encouraging development projects like Amaravati in South India.