Is 2019 decided already?

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is invincible as of now, according to a Mood of the Nation, or MOTN, poll carried out by India Today. If an election was to be held today the National Democratic Alliance will win 349 seats, 10 more than what it won in the last general elections in 2014. 20% of people think his performance has been outstanding so far and 43% think that it has been good. 24% of people think he is not afraid of taking risks, 23% applaud his crackdown on black money and 14% welcome that his administration is free of corruption. Most surprisingly, Mamata Banerjee of West Bengal has been rated the best chief minister. 33% think that he has been the best prime minister in our brief history, 17% opt for Indira Gandhi, 9% for Atal Bihari Vajpayee and only 8% for Jawaharlal Nehru. Of course, Nehru died in 1964, and 65% of our population is below the age of 35 years, so they will have little knowledge of the nation Nehru inherited from the British to form an opinion about his policies, both good and bad. The popularity of Indira Gandhi is surprising considering the bad press she gets regularly. According to motivation guru Simon Sinek, Modi is expert at making people concentrate on his intentions rather than his actual achievements. So, Modi is unbeatable. Not so fast, say MVR Gowda and S Soz of the Congress. "In contrast to its pronouncements, the government's own data suggest the economy is in a deep hole," they wrote. They point to the Economic Survey II which says that growth of both GDP and GVA will be softer and industrial production, capacity utilisation, credit and investment are all weak. Companies are unable to repay their enormous loans, which is why banks are struggling with bad loans of Rs 7.8 trillion. The Economic Report II is actually a "Cause for caution, not gloom", wrote NK Singh, who is Chairman of the FRBM Committee. FRBM stands for Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management Act of 2003 which is supposed to impose fiscal discipline on government spending. In January this year, his committee recommended that fiscal deficit should be brought down to 2.5% over the next 6 financial years and government debt should be reduced to less than 60% of GDP by 2023. An Escape Clause can allow an excess of 0.5% on fiscal deficit, but this should be with the permission of the committee, wrote Ira Dugal. You cannot fool all the people all the time, said Abraham Lincoln. Just fool enough to win elections. That's all.