The Gujarat election is a ‘normal’ election if sectarian tensions are taken as the sole index of abnormality. However, in terms of establishing new benchmarks in governance and political management, how Gujarat votes will contain important lessons. In what may yet turn out to be a referendum on the past five years of Modi’s administration, the verdict may help redefine what can and cannot be achieved in the political sphere.

The real tragedy of Modi is that his audacious bid to reshape the rules of governance and politics has been overshadowed on the national stage by an obsessive preoccupation with Hindu-Muslim issues. In Gujarat, however, the agenda has been set by Modi’s strategy for rapid economic growth and an approach to political management that has produced tensions between him and a section of the RSS parivar.

Modi has presided over a period of double-digit economic growth in Gujarat. It has won him the lavish appreciation of industry and made Gujarat the most favoured destination of private investment. Yet, what has been insufficiently highlighted is that the success of Gujarat owes a great deal to Modi’s success in demolishing many of the ideological obstacles to market-oriented economics. Some of his more notable successes include: statutory curbs on government fiscal profligacy; curbing wasteful expenditure through a 9 per cent cut in non-plan expenditure over five years; carrying out radical reforms in the power sector that has led to profits for the ‘unbundled’ power companies and ensured generous power supply to rural Gujarat; and, most important, amending the draconian Industrial Disputes Act to make labour laws in the special economic zones receptive to market conditions.

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