-Livemint.com/ Bloomberg
Modi is facing resentment among rural households that became accustomed to large wage increases under his predecessor
New Delhi: In the wheat fields stretching across northern India, farmers like Dalvir Sharma are starting to turn on Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Sharma, 51, voted for Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) last year after it promised to stem rising prices in the market. Now he’s struggling to pay back a Rs.100,000 loan after unseasonal rains destroyed most of his crop and guaranteed prices increased at the slowest pace in at least four years.
“We voted for the BJP as we thought Modi will change our lives,” said Sharma, a farmer in Uttar Pradesh. “So far, nothing has happened.”
Modi won office a year ago in part on pledges to rural voters that he’d rein in one of Asia’s fastest inflation rates. While consumer price gains have slowed, he’s now facing resentment among rural households that became accustomed to large wage increases under his predecessor.
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