Has Peak Modi era ended?

Last year, post the UP election, I had written about how the Peak Modi era had began. Over the last couple of months, I have been hearing from apolitical friends about how they were losing faith in Modi and given that opinions of friends and taxi driver are just hypotheses, I went searching for data

The above chart is from Google Trends. I had borrowed this idea from Rahul Gupta and I find it extremely accurate in predicting election results.

What you see in the chart is Modi versus Rahul Gandhi Mapped over the last 5 years (3 months rolling average). What are the main observations?

1. Modi saw a first peak in May 2014 – Election 2014
2. Modi saw a second and a bigger peak in Jan 2017 which is essentially the 3 months starting from November to January end – Demonetisation period
3. The average gap between Modi and Rahul Gandhi was 8.2 before and during the election of 2014. It went upto a massive 13 during the period between May 2014 and January 2017. It came down to 8.8 after March 2017 till date
4. During the pre-election period, both Modi and Rahul went up and down in the same manner, probably more to do with events and coverage. The trend continued but was less stronger in the period between June 2014 and March 2017. This is when Modi went up but Rahul went down or remained same. In the third phase, the linkage has become slightly negative, Rahul Gandhi has remained steady while Modi appears to be losing quickly

How have the absolutes changed?

The findings are stark, Modi is definitely lower than even his 2014 numbers. This is why perhaps I am hearing murmurs from people. However, this is mixed news for Rahul Gandhi as well. While he appears to have stemmed the rot post-2014 election and perhaps also getting through to voters on Modi negatives, he is yet to create substantial positives for himself that will take him up the charts

To answer the bigger questions

a. Has the Modi peak ended? – Yes

b. Is this Modi’s worst performance since becoming PM? – Yes

c. Can things get worse for Modi? – Yes

d. Can things get better for Modi? – Yes

e. Is Rahul Gandhi catching up? – No

f. Can Rahul Gandhi improve from here? – Yes

The next 12 months offer intriguing possibilities politically. It needs to be seen how our leading politicians can carve out a narrative that will propel the country further. I believe both Modi and Rahul Gandhi will need to come up with a new but connected narrative if they wish to break the current trend (Modi Going down and Rahul Gandhi stagnating). Hopefully, they come up with something that will inspire us and not divide us further.