Modi government should focus on serving the people, pure and simple

I reflected on his words. True, Modi has been the face of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in recent years. His photo was everywhere, at functions and junctions, even on the bags of food grains distributed for free to the poor. So every packet of wheat, every vaccine, every tablet of medicine seemed to have come from the big-heartedness of the leader.

Modi is the BJP’s brand ambassador and every election promise was broadcast as “Modi’s guarantee”. Perhaps this focus on one face, one leader, did not go down well with all of Modi’s colleagues or the voters. After all, it is the government paying for the supplies given out to the poor, and not any particular leader. Hubris had set in.

Many citizens feel that after a decade in power, the ruling party had become haughty. It was taking the stakeholders, the people, for granted. Leaders in democracies should remember that the real owners of any country are its people, who vote them into power. Leadership is not an end in itself. It is not an exercise in self-aggrandisement. Leadership is the opportunity to serve the electorate. Politics is not a game. Politics is the art of serving the people.

In my career in consumer products, I have learned a simple lesson: when you make and deliver a great product, you don’t have to make too much clatter. If you focus inordinately on marketing and inadequately on product quality and delivery, people see through it.

Governments, too, should realise that when you do good work, people know it. You do not have to beat the drums.

Rajendra Aneja, Mumbai

Now that the BJP has failed to win an outright majority, some critics feel it’s curtains down for Modi.

Far from it. For a start, the BJP’s vote share, at nearly 37 per cent, is almost intact from the