Most investors have priced in Prime Minister Narendra Modi winning a second term in the 2019 elections.
The country's best known stock investor Rakesh Jhunjhunwala says that despite the poor performance of ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in by-polls, Modi remains the most popular and favoured political candidate.
" In the history of all democracies, bypolls by and large always go against the ruling party. So I think too much is being made of the fact that the BJP has lost the bypolls," Jhunjhunwala told CNBC-TV18 on Thursday.With the BJP losing a number of bypolls, the nationalist pary now has 273 members in the 545-strong lower house of parliament, only one above the half-way mark.
Also the popularity of Modi, who faces general election next year, has fallen as more people believe that the government does not deserve a second chance.
In a survey conducted between April 27 and May 17, 47 percent of the respondents believed that the Modi government did not deserve another chance to govern India, according to a “Mood of the Nation” survey published by the Lokniti, part of the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS), a research institute.
In July 2013, nine months before the 2014 national elections, the same survey had indicated a similar trend for the UPA government.
"The fact remains that Modi is the most towering leader of this country as of today and I think in a range of 1 to 10 if he is 9, the second person is 3. So you will fight this central elections on the basis of an electable prime minister," said Jhunjhunwala.
The 57-year-old billionaire, who doesn’t much like the moniker of ‘India’s Warren Buffett’, is confident of BJP coming to power in 2019 as he believes the opposition party lacks a leader like Modi.
"I do not think the Congress or the opposition has got a credible leader as a prime minister ... I am pretty sure myself, in all my calculations that the next government is going to be a BJP government."
First Published: IST