Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke to the NDA allies in the Central Hall of Parliament just before his swearing-in on Saturday. His message was that he would remain prime minister for another 10 years (he did not say how he knew this), but to be fair to him, that was mentioned in passing. His main message appeared to be to tell his alliance not to pay attention to the news.
Things would be reported about their government from here on, but alliance partners should ignore these reports and not trust anything without it being verified. Why would he say that? Of course, because things will begin to be reported in a way that they were not in the last decade. We have just come out of an era of total secrecy.
Modi’s own Cabinet ministers did not know that demonetisation was coming. We know this because it was reported later that the Cabinet had been summoned to the meeting a few hours before Modi’s speech to authorise demonetisation, but ministers were told to leave their phones behind. This was to stop them from relaying the news outside. Since the ministers did not know until that moment, their ministries did not know or prepare.
A similar situation had arisen during the 2020 nationwide Covid lockdown, which came as a bolt from the blue to all of us, including those in government.
This sort of thing will no longer........