THE MAKE OR BREAK YEAR
In a marriage, they call it the seven-year-itch when the romance sours and partners start looking for better prospects. You could say the same about Indian politics, and the relationship of prime ministers with their electorate after seven years. Indira Gandhi seemed invincible in 1971 after the Bangladesh War but, by the seventh year of her tenure, the oil shocks of 1973 and student agitations that year gave birth to the JP movement, which ultimately led to her defeat in 1977. The BJP-led National Democratic Alliance seemed certain of re-election in 2004 in Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s seventh year at the helm, but they underestimated the strength of the Opposition coalition and paid the price. After a convincing re-election in 2009, Manmohan Singh and the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance were cruising—till the corruption scandals in his seventh year as prime minister sealed the UPA’s fate in 2014.
Narendra Modi is in his seventh year as prime minister and all hell seems to have broken loose around him.
