BJP's Accomplishments and why one should Vote for them

I have come across a few people who ask me: "Why should one vote for the BJP, they are useless after all". They dislike the BJP govt’s administration and style of functioning during 2014-24, and cite the following:

• They do only jumlas, no real work
• They have ruined the economy, what with high fuel taxes and poorly implemented GST, not honoring tax devolution to states in a timely manner, etc
• They benefit only corporates
• They hurt minorities
• They damage the pillars of democracy by using ED, governor, etc

These people propagate a view that all that’s been happening in the past 10 years is what they call jumlas, and that those who vote for the BJP are andh-bhakts, often influenced by WhatsApp University. And oh by the way, one commonality in some of such people is that they tend to berate their own selves and their own culture at the slightest opportunity. Very strange, it is likely a colonial hangover and a penchant desire to be validated by others. One can only feel pity for such flawed thinking.

With an attempt to dispel the above misgivings, I explain below why the above thinking is wrong and why one should vote for the BJP if one really is thinking about the country’s best interests. At the very outset, I must admit that I reside in India, and am an infrastructure & transportation nerd as a side-passion with a reasonable understanding of economics, and my judgement is based on these two parameters/KPIs for the most part.

Unlike earlier govts, development of transportation infrastructure during the present BJP regime has happened at a never-before-seen scale, pace and quality. Not like China by any stretch of imagination because we are after all constrained by the rules of democracy and for arguably valid reasons more often than not, but a quantum leap nevertheless. I state below an itemized list of some of these developments, all of which were wholly (wholly in most, predominantly in some) built and executed by the BJP central govt or a BJP state govt:

1. Roads (over and above the regular NHAI 4-laning and 6-laning that’s also happening ever since Vajpayee started it):
• 1400 kms long 8-laned Delhi-Mumbai Expwy and its spurs (Jewar airport spur, Okhla spur, etc). This is under active construction, with several parts completed. I have myself driven on the open stretches of this, see my own review with pictures at https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/street-experiences/197792-delhi-mumbai-expressway-reduce-travel-time-12-hours-4.html#post5544113
• 700 kms long 6-laned Mumbai-Nagpur Expwy in MH (90% length is operational, remaining under construction in the ghat section)
• 340 kms long Purvanchal Expwy in UP
• 300 kms long Bundelkhand Expwy in UP
• 135 kms long 6-laned Eastern Peripheral Expwy in Delhi NCR (not the best example, as it’s quality isn’t great; was built as soon as BJP came to power in 2014; work is on to fix it’s bad stretches). I have myself driven on this
• 135 kms long 6-laned Western Peripheral Expwy in Delhi NCR (again, not the best example, for the same reason as above). I have myself driven on this
• 120 kms long 6-laned Bangalore-Mysore Expwy. I have myself driven on this
• 100 kms long 6-laned Delhi-Meerut Expwy in UP. I have myself driven on this
• 4-laned STRR in Bangalore (30% of it is operational, remaining under active construction)
• Mumbai Trans Harbour Link (MTHL) Atal Setu, a 21 kms long bridge over the sea. I have myself driven on this
• West Coast freeway in Mumbai built on reclaimed land with fancy interchanges and promenades (partly open, part under active construction)
• Missing-link project on the Mumbai-Pune Expwy (under active construction in the ghats)
• Khambatki ghat tunnel and bypass under construction
• Rolled out FASTag, an automated toll payment method
• Tunnels under the Pragati Maidan in New Delhi
2. Railways:
• USBRL Kashmir Rail link in the most treacherous part between Katra and Banihal, involving the beautiful Anji-Khad cable-stayed bridge and the world’s tallest Chenab arch bridge. Of this, the Banihal-Sangaldan stretch was opened in early 2024 (see https://youtu.be/pHMLwDiTG6I?si=5s5R0XFjJAKdpKm6), the rest is almost done, tunnel T1 being the sole item in progress. The whole line is expected to be thrown open in late 2024
• Delhi-Meerut NCRTC RRTS (RapidX: Partly open, part under active construction)
• Aided by the Metro Policy 2017, there has been a rapid proliferation of Metro rail systems in all Tier 1&2 cities nationwide (and some Tier 3 cities, though some of those Tier 3 cities may not be financially suitable for a metro system). Many of us would have witnessed these
• The bullet train project is under active construction, I have personally seen this. If going by train on western railway, you can see it near Vadodara too
• 3300 kms long Dedicated Freight Corridor DFC (EDFC fully completed, WDFC part completed, rest under active construction. I have personally seen it. This was crawling during UPA govt, and got on steroids during BJP govt). The EDFC and WDFC have one of the world’s most modern control centers in Prayagraj and Ahmedabad respectively, and the WDFC runs double-stacked containers too
• Electrification and railway track doubling have happened to greatly increased extents. For instance, Mumbai-Chennai line is now FEDL (fully-electrified and doubled), which happened in 2023. Mumbai-Bangalore is also almost FEDL, only a 50 kms stretch is pending. Bangalore-Miraj stretch is fully doubled, electrification is in process. Pune-Miraj stretch is fully electrified and largely doubled, remaining doubling is in process. There are several more. An overwhelming majority of these happened post-2014.
• Introduced modern railway stations like SMVT in Bangalore and redevelopment of existing stations like Rani Kamalapati Bhopal, etc. In contrast, during Congress regimes, railways stations were forever relegated to being decrepit
• Introduced trains with auto-closing main doors etc such as Tejas Exp
• Introduced trains with distributed traction and auto-closing main doors such as Vande Bharat Exp. Work is on to introduce sleeper version version of Vande Bharat, being built by BEML
• Proliferated LHB’fication of rail coaches to non-CC and non-AC coaches. Earlier, they were limited to CC coaches in Shatabdi Exp. Now AC2, AC3 and non-AC coaches are also built on LHB designs, I have personally travelled on these
• Introduced AC locals in Mumbai suburban. I have personally seen these
• Proliferated broad gauge railways in the northeast such as Tripura, etc
• Introduced Vistadome coaches, a fabulous experience that I have myself experienced on the Mumbai-Goa sector
• Introduced app-based booking of platform tickets and rail tickets including suburban rail using the UTS app, which I have myself used
• Introduced app-based booking of food for delivery at the coach doorstep at a station of your choice, which I have myself used, though wasn’t very satisfied with the food quality
• Very many railroad crossings (ie. LCs - level crossings) have been closed and in their place an underpass road crossing has been constructed
• Railway station platforms are extremely well lit and clean nowadays, this was not the case before 2014. Unfortunately train toilets are still smelly, and that is a problem. It is a hard problem to solve due to overpopulation and cultural causes such as the way we use them (involving water, lack of awareness of when to raise the seat cover in western toilet, etc)
• In order to increase scale and quality of locomotives, reputed private companies have been encouraged to manufacture electric and diesel locomotives, as a result of which reputed companies like GE and Alstom have set up factories in places like Madhepura in Bihar, etc
• In order to increase scale and quality of railway coaches, reputed private companies like Alstom, Titagarh Rail Systems, etc (alongside reputed PSU companies like BEML) have been encouraged to manufacture metro rail coaches in India, and some of them are exporting them worldwide. Furthermore, Medha Servo Motors manufactures monorail coaches in India for Mumbai Mono Rail. All these developments have happened after 2014
3. Several new airports like:
• Goa Mopa
• Sikkim
• Ayodhya
• Shirdi
• Shivamoga
• Etc (quite a long list, I don’t recall all)
4. Several new airport terminals like:
• Bangalore T2 (considered to be one of the world’s best terminals)
• Pune
• Port Blair Veer Savarkar terminal T2, which is modern and nearly 7 times the size of the older terminal T1
• Etc (quite a long list, I don’t recall all)
5. Signature road bridges:
• 2.5 kms long Okha - BeytDwarka cable-stayed bridge over the sea opened in 2024
• 5 kms long Bogibeel bridge over the Brahmaputra river (road+rail double-decker bridge)
• 8-laned cable-stayed New Zuari bridge in Goa opened in 2022
6. Signature road tunnels:
• 9 kms long Atal tunnel in the snow-clad Himalayas
• 14 kms long Zojilla Tunnel (under construction) in the snow-clad Himalayas

More are under active construction by the BJP central govt like Delhi-Dehradun Expwy, Jamnagar-Amritsar Expwy, Surat-Chennai Expwy, Blore-Chennai Expwy, 4-laning of several highways such as the NH66 Mumbai-Goa-Kochi-Kanyakumari coastal highway passing through 4 states in the treacherous Konkan terrain, etc.

The above list are not jumlas, nor are they so-called gyan from WhatsApp university. There are very many videos and pictures that infra-nerds have clicked and posted on YouTube and infra-portals like SSC (skyscrapercity.com), etc. Visit sites like https://www.skyscrapercity.com/categories/infrastructure-transportation.1247/ and you’ll see a thread for each of the projects mentioned above and many more, complete with textual updates, pictures and videos. Before one jumps to conclusions like godi-media etc, please bear in mind that SSC is a worldwide site, it is not limited to India. The net point being that when an administration is able to scale and execute so many large projects so fast, clearly it is an able administration that wants to take the country somewhere forward. And when I see my tax money spent for such purposes, which are concrete examples of foundational elements that are good for the economy and its future, I see no reason to complain if the fuel taxes are high. Indeed, as stated above, I have personally seen and experienced many of these projects. Yes, the poor suffer because of high fuel taxes, but it has been shown that the impact of high fuel prices on commodity prices when amortized over large quantities being transported, is small. Indeed, that is manifested in the fact that inflation in India is very much at reasonable levels.

Ok, so good that our tax monies are being put to good work, but then some people ask why do we have tolls on highways? Well, firstly tolling of highways existed even before 2014. Secondly, building a large infrastructure project involves a lot of upfront cost including and not limited to land acquisition. Given that the income tax paying population of India is around a measly 5%, it is believable if I am told that tax revenue alone isn’t enough to fund the infrastructure blitzkrieg. A more feasible model to attract a competent highway contractor-chain to have them fund it, is to let an agency in the chain collect tolls up to some defined period. Many new highways in several countries of the developed world are also tolled. Such tolls go directly into maintaining the highway, thereby streamlining the accounting for this activity, which otherwise can be tedious and leaky if such spends came out of a common “direct/indirect tax kitty”.

Some other naysayers ask that if there has been such a boom in the construction of Metro rail systems in India after the advent of the Modi government, why is the construction so slow, why does it take 4/5/6 years even for a single line? Well, one needs to understand that building a metro rail system in an Indian city is like doing a live surgery on a person. There are issues like land acquisition, construction amidst dense, live traffic, etc. To elaborate further, it is not as simple as building something using Lego blocks. And what you see above ground is not the only thing, there are ample structures to be built below the ground even for an elevated metro line, that one would notice if one stops at a construction site and observes daily. For instance, each metro pillar has 4-7 piles under it that go 20-25 meters deep underground. It is a complex construction activity amidst live traffic all the while striving to prevent construction-related accidents. Combine that with the fact that constructing each metro station is akin to constructing an apartment complex. And when we recognize that constructing an apartment complex in a 5-acre plot itself takes 4-5 years in an Indian city, it ought to be perfectly understandable if constructing a metro rail system over a 30-50 kms stretch takes 4-6 years, with its myriad of issues like land acquisition, litigation, shifting of utilities like underground gas and electric lines, phased government approvals, etc.

When I see the BJP government executing and completing such projects (as opposed to some notional Bhoomi-pooja that occurs at the start and then gets forgotten, as was often the case during Congress regimes), and when I see that the relevant departments are headed by capable people (Nitin Gadkari for Highways, Ashwini Vaishnaw for Railways (MTech from IIT Kanpur, MBA from Wharton School of Business), Rajeev Chandrashekar for Technology (MS from Illinois Inst of Tech, MBA from Harvard, former employee of Intel Corp), an assertive S. Jaishankar for External Affairs, a strong Ajit Doval for National Security, etc), I know that my country is in good hands. When I see it headed by a PM who works tirelessly for the nation’s best interests, that knowledge is cemented and confirmed even more.

The people who berate PM Modi seem to dislike the very drone and tone of his speeches, without focusing on his work. Talk about judging a book by its cover and not its contents! And these same people have the cheek to lecture others on tolerance! Anyway, never mind that, the BJP politicians are also guilty of making such childish mockeries of the opposition, so equal offenders both!

In the past during Congress regimes, the poor continued to suffer, and such infrastructure was never built or rarely built. But under the BJP regime post-2014, we have been able to get significantly better transportation infrastructure, while other things have also improved. Indeed, one can deem 2015-2025 as the decade of significant improvement in India’s transportation infrastructure. It is well known that such modern infrastructure boosts the economy directly, and indirectly by a trickle-down effect, and also raises peoples’ expectations whereby governments then are required to raise the bar and do increasingly better. Akin to the change when computers, ATMs, etc were introduced, despite some sceptics wondering if these changes were needed. The indirect trickle-down effect has manifested itself in the form of heavy construction equipment makers actually starting manufacturing these in India nowadays, such as large TBMs (tunnel boring machines, Herrenknecht has a plant in Chennai), piling rigs (SANY has a plant in Pune), etc.

Continuing on with the main focus of this blog, I list below some more achievements of the BJP government related to economy, STEM, etc:

• Increased formalization of the economy
• Greatly facilitated entry of semiconductor manufacturing into India with a never-before-seen intent and effort, with competent people and agencies at the helm of this initiative. This is commendable, and after being in higher education academia, I can say that I would also like to see an increase in PhD stipends in STEM fields, and some support from the government to make this happen would go a long way in making us successful in our semiconductor and other scientific forays
• Mandated Aadhar-PAN linking and Aadhar-SIM linking, which helps reduce bogus tax filers and bogus SIM buyers (thereby making it hard for anti-social elements like terrorists to procure mobile connectivity). It is my hope that one day Aadhar-VoterID linking will also be mandated
• Facilitated the introduction of UPI, a world-acclaimed payments feature. Today every nook and corner in many cities accept UPI QR code payments, including my local tea seller who accepts predominantly UPI payments for a cup of tea costing Rs 10
• Facilitated the successful launch and landing of Chandrayan on the moon

Naysayers also ask, what does the BJP or Modi have to do with Chandrayan, Railways, etc? Isn’t it the employees and civil servants if at all to get credit, etc? First, that is such a convenient argument! When talking about achievements pre-2000, they’d spin it around and conveniently give credit to Nehru, Gandhi, etc. Why the double-standard now? Anyway, whataboutery aside, the more important reason to give some credit to the BJP and Modi for such feats is because budget allocations have been significantly increased for infrastructure, space research, higher education, etc. Budget allocations that were previously withheld, are now increased and smoothly passed for facilitating such feats. And this is possible because leakages (read corruption) have been greatly reduced and efficiencies improved. And for that, the Modi government deserves credit.

Some more achievements of the BJP govt related to governance:

• Able handling of the terrible COVID 19 crisis. While it is unfortunate that many lost their lives world over due to the COVID virus, it must also be acknowledged that the Modi government did a commendable job of managing the crisis, facilitating the development and rollout of vaccines, etc. For a country with a vast population like ours, which the world thought will be the most to suffer, we did an outstanding job. We must thank the Modi government and thank our stars too
• Brought permanent peace in the Kashmir valley by abrogating Article 370. Kashmiris seem extremely happy with this, per the abundant reports and videos from local Kashmiris
• Terror attacks have reduced nationwide under the BJP regime
• Crime in Yogi's UP has significantly reduced. I being based in UP, many of my colleagues here are of UP origin, and this is directly from them
• A resolution to the Ram Janmabhoomi dispute in Ayodhya was finally found
• Built appreciation-worthy cultural/historical sites like the Statue of Unity, Ujjain Mahakaal corridor, Kashi Vishwanath corridor, etc (I have personally visited the first two; the SoU is especially fantastic)

Having said all this, I will admit to the few things I am embarrassed about the BJP and that need urgent addressing, listing them below to the best of my recollection:

• There appear to have been opportunistic use of ED. Comparisons to Indira Gandhi regime are not acceptable, this needs to stop. Or considering real-politik, atleast significantly reduce. Overuse of this is self-damaging and one loses credibility. Worse, there have been cases where those accused of corruption have joined the BJP, as if all their sins get washed once they join the BJP. This has to stop
• The constant attacks on Nehru need to stop. Even accounting for real-politik where Rahul Gandhi keeps attacking Veer Savarkar and one could argue for a tit-for-tat, I'd rather my side show maturity and stop the demonization of Nehru
• Train toilets still stink. I don’t know what is the solution to this
• Our driver license issuance process is terrible. I hope Nitin Gadkari fixes this
• Our highways, while improved, still suffer in DfS aspects (Design for Safety). It is incorrect to blame all accidents on overspeeding. There are still flaws in highway exit and merge designs, lane striping at such places, lack of median crash barriers, lack of longitudinal rumblers, lack of Botts dots along lane markings, etc. I hope Nitin Gadkari fixes these, by hiring consultants from the developed world
• Our highways need a well-equipped and well-trained highway patrol service. I hope Nitin Gadkari addresses this, along with a well-equipped highway-police-academy for periodic refresher trainings, etc
• Going forwards, the BJP needs to work harder to address rural problems. Highways, railways, etc infrastructure, while has its trickle-down benefits, trickles down far too slowly to the poorest of the poor. In that respect, the government needs to do something. I believe the farm laws were a step in that direction, but instead of ramrodding it down, perhaps more effort ought to have been put in building consensus

About the Electoral Bonds, I feel it is a good thing but there should be changes in it, such as making it anonymous if the purchase is below some threshold, else mandatory disclosure. Also, in order to avoid splitting up large purchases into several small anonymous ones, there should be a cap on how many anonymous purchases can one entity/PAN/TAN make in a fiscal year. The threshold needs to be thoughtfully chosen.

I am not embarrassed about EVMs. In a populous country like ours, EVMs are a must. Else counting would take forever and be error-prone, not to mention the bigger problem of yesteryears like booth-rigging and booth-capturing. Selective, random VVPAT cross-check is fine, but 100% VVPAT verification is unusable in a populous country like ours.

Thus, in the final reckoning, all said and done, it’s a no-brainer that the BJP needs to continue to govern. The opposition is littered with dynastic parties. Congress, DMK, SS(UBT), etc, you name it. Do we really need dynasts to rule us?!? When you go by the list of accomplishments stated above, one realizes that the accomplishments of the Congress party during their regime pales in comparison by a huge margin. People like Rahul Gandhi were born with a silver spoon, never having to work their way up, and who entitles himself to go off to party in Thailand etc every now and then. The BJP on the other hand is a cadre based party, very different from other parties. Anyone in the BJP can aim to rise if he or she works hard. It has the RSS as its backing, which is very much invested into India and wants to see a developed and strong India. Dynastic parties like the INC, TMC, DMK, etc have the sole objective of propping up their dynastic leader, the nation’s interests are not at all paramount. To make matters worse, Rahul Gandhi has gone on record campaigning with ultra-left promises, suggesting unimplementable ideas like GST on items depending on caste and economic status of people buying the item, hiring senior management in companies based on caste of the prospective candidate, etc.  Indeed, his agenda has been a divisive one, contrary to what he claims. More importantly, if the INDI alliance governs us, each of the constituent parties would be so distracted saving their seats that governance would go for a toss. This is exactly what has happened in Maharashtra post 2019, with MVA as well as with Fadnavis+Eknath+AjitPawar, and we can see its effects in Mumbai where metro rail projects that were doing well when Fadnavis was firmly in control during 2014-19, have been in total disarray in 2019-24. Hence it is necessary to vote the NDA into power with a dominant BJP, with a good leader firmly at the helm.

Finally, I will express my thinking about an area where I have some thoughts but I am not an expert, nor is it an area I keenly track, viz. Minorities. I realize that some minorities may be uncomfortable with a BJP regime, and I guess I’d be dishonest with myself if I blindly debunk such concerns. And I realize that I’ll never understand it unless I wear their hat. The BJP government likely needs to work harder to bridge that trust-deficit. But all said and done, I believe that a Hindu majority is inherently accommodating, and my gut feeling is that minorities need not fear and they would be able to freely and legally practice their faith without fear even in a BJP regime. That may seem like an oversimplification, but I firmly believe that as the best and maximally feasible option; anything otherwise would be a greater injustice. In Hinduism, one can be a believer or an atheist, one can be a believer and yet not be regular with rituals or visiting temples, etc. One can believe in Adwaita philosophy or Dwaita philosophy or neither at all, etc. It is inherently flexible. It is one of the reasons why we have allowed outsiders into India many centuries ago.

Some of the developed world are more unsecular in some ways, contrary to their claims otherwise. For instance, every hotel (without exception) that I have stayed in in the US in my 15 years of stay there, had a copy of the Holy Bible in the room. I believe these are given for free by a group called the Gideons. I have seen this in hotels owned and run by Hindus also. One can only imagine the ruckus that’d be created in India if an organization went hotel to hotel in India distributing a free copy of the Bhagavad Gita for keeping in the hotel rooms. Second example, the city councils in the US (ie. state support) seem to have a budget for attractively decorating public property like trees and streetlamps on road medians, trees on public footpaths, strip malls, etc during events like Christmas. But this is not the case for other religions festivals. And this is understandable, since they are Christian-dominated countries. Compared to that, our country, which is the only birthplace of Hinduism, is far more accommodating by and large.

BJP & RSS are probably the most misunderstood party when it comes to communalism. In my view, and what a lot of people have realized, the BJP is just trying to bring parity and a deserved respect for an ancient culture. This parity had got lost and this anomaly had been normalized to such an extent that people had gotten used to the disparity and had taken it as the new normal. As a flip side of what I stated before, this is an aspect that would be understood by people if they wear our hat.

I agree that beyond a point, this "re-normalization of parity" runs the risk of breaking the fabric of peace in society. So where does the balance lie? I guess that's where different people have different opinions. I have mine, and will vote on that basis, along with the infra+economy+security etc related KPIs that I attach the most importance to.

I believe I have stated ample reasons as to why the BJP is the best party to govern India. And with that, dear readers, I rest my case. Thank you for patiently reading my long blog, have a great day, and vote wisely!