New Delhi (16.11.2021): The NDA administration's move to acquire more discretionary powers through Ordinances to give more lifelines by extending tenures of top officials of the ED, CBI, R&AW, IB and Defense Ministry has drawn both legitimate and illegitimate concerns as well as the wild allegation of establishing a 'compromised' bureaucracy'.

However, the move could well be a signal of PM Narendra Modi's desire to set up a fixed team to implement his big bang reforms. Seen in the background of recent elevations of the 1988 and 1989 batch officers to the secretary and secretary equivalent posts having fairly long service tenure, it may seem that the administration is following a plan of action to produce results in the next two years to the runup to the 2024 Parliamentary elections.

After creating a team of civil officers to achieve its economic results targeted for cushioning political objectives, the administration probably also felt equally strongly about creating a strong security team in view of the challenging external and internal situations. And hence the latest ordinances exclusively related to security organizations.

To achieve visible results has become a question of life and death for the ruling party, partly because it is devoid of any emotive issue after the settlement of the Ram Mandir issue and partly because of the deep economic slowdown induced by the party's badly conceptualized and equally badly executed demonetization/remonetization (between November 8 and December 30, 2016) policy turned so virulent by the Covid pandemic that millions of informal sector workers not only lost their jobs in 2020 and 2021 but also continue to live in pathetic and penurious situation till this day. 

It is quite certain that the opposition will use the great suffering of the people as ordnances to rip the image of the NDA administration before the 2024 general elections. And why not? It is already on display in UP and other states that will go through assembly elections in 2022.

Aware of the chinks in its armor, the NDA administration has been for the past few years assiduously executing big-bang reforms. The financial and banking sectors are the most visible symbols of these reforms where the creation of a bad bank, along with assets reconstruction companies, has already started yielding positive results. The IBC Code 2016 is due for amendments as defaulters have been trying to game the law as was feared earlier. A major reform, stipulating the resolution period, is urgently called for.

Further, the government has been quite enthusiastically, a quantum jump from its earlier complacent and deplorable attitude, executing a plan, endorsed by all big and medium powers, to turn Bharat into an alternative go-to hub to China for specialty chemicals, EV batteries, solar panels and cells, pharmaceutical APIs, automotive components, etc. Results in these areas could be visible as early as the first half of FY23 and onward.

A feel-good environment from the second half of calendar 2022, unless disrupted by another calamity, war, etc, is all that the NDA administration needs to sail through the 2024 elections. Hence the creation of a favorable, cohesive and well-knit development and security team that may not undergo changes till 2024 might have been considered an absolute necessity.

(By Rakesh Ranjan)