Election 2019 has further powered the already strong leadership of Narendra Modi | The Indian Express

Election 2019 has further powered the already strong leadership of Narendra Modi | The Indian Express

Written by Neerja Chowdhury |Updated: May 26, 2019 10:59:20 am

The writer is a senior journalist

Election 2019 has further powered the already strong leadership of Narendra Modi

Mandate 2019 has challenged caste- based identity for the first time in 30 years, since the Mandal Commission’s report to give job reservations to the OBCs came into effect in 1990.

Indira Gandhi at a press conference at Vigyan Bhavan, New Delhi, 1971. Modi, a BJP leader said, wants to model himself not on any RSS idol, but her. (Express Archive)

Narendra Modi’s 2019 win is a watershed moment in the contemporary history of India. The sheer scale of the victory has been breathtaking. It is not as if there have not been spectacular victories in the past. In the first election after Independence in 1952, the Congress party had got 364 of 489 seats and 45% of the popular vote (the same as the NDA has notched up this time). In 1971, Indira Gandhi won a landslide after her clarion call for ‘Garibi Hatao’.