Good democratic politics: Create jobs

High on the list of consequences of BJP returning to being dependent on a coalition, rather than having a majority of its own, would be the pressures on the economic front.

Ever since the liberalisation of the 1990s, conventional wisdom has been that economic policy needs to focus entirely on growth. Economists associated with govt have often explicitly argued that inequality does not matter as long as there is sufficient growth to take the poor above the poverty line. The 2024 general election results provide the first concrete challenge to that view.

The idea that high growth would provide the resources to take care of the interests of those at the base of the pyramid did not begin with BJP govts. It gathered momentum with the decision of UPA 1 to launch the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee scheme. BJP provided further impetus to this approach by using the revenue from unequal growth to provide free food and other welfare measures.

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