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Journalism of Courage
Union Minister and senior BJP leader Piyush Goyal on election strategies, the Opposition, electoral bonds, his own candidacy for the Lok Sabha and the state of the economy. The session was moderated by Sandeep Singh, Editor, Mumbai
Every FTA negotiation stands on its own legs. The Modi government goes about these discussions very cautiously, with stakeholder consultation, and negotiates very hard from a position of strength. The world today knows that when you are negotiating with India, you’re doing so with a $ 35 trillion economy, not a $ 3.5 trillion economy. For FTAs, one has to do crystal-gazing into the future and see what is good for the country over the next 20, 30 or 50 years. These are long sustaining agreements, so we ensure that they are fair, equitable and balanced. And unless we get that on our terms, we don’t rush into closing any FTA negotiation. A sticking point could even be as simple as one item, which may hold back talks for several months. But we are okay with it.
India will do FTAs on its terms. The country’s farmers, fishermen, MSMEs (Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises) have to be protected, domestic manufacturing has to have a level-playing field and there has to be transparency on both sides in how countries operate. We have to ensure that we do not allow people to come in from unfriendly countries through the backdoor. So, many significant issues have to be balanced in a larger perspective. Therefore, we never rush into an FTA.
These are quite confidential. Until everything gets wrapped up and announced, we don’t discuss specifics. We are a potential superpower and given our growth trajectory, nobody in the world has any doubt this is the country to trade with. So we have to negotiate hard and get the best deal for India.
People of India have made up their mind to support Mr Modi in an unprecedented way. Therefore, both our targets of 370 and 400 stand. We will achieve both of them
I must acknowledge that the UK Government did try their best. They put an extra foot forward as did we. But there will always be reasons why some things don’t close and probably the right time for this has not come.
There are a lot of similarities and new elements in terms of public outreach, voter connect and leadership. People are looking for strong, decisive leaders, clean and honest governments. They appreciate you when you connect with them personally, be it at the candidate level or at the national level through rallies of the Prime Minister, Home Minister and other senior leaders.
But several new elements have come in and will increasingly play an important role, like social media. PM Narendra Modi had recognised in 2014 itself that this was going to be the new way of campaigning. Today, one good Instagram reel or a good meme can actually swing the debate for a couple of days. Another element, albeit disturbing, is the spread of fake news. In the good old days, there was a lot more research and care taken in dissemination of information or reporting. In the current age of breaking news, and in trying to be first off the block, there is a tendency to pick and choose and distort facts. You break the news, and if it turns out to be false, you care a damn. I suspect this trend will be further accentuated when artificial intelligence (AI) and deep fakes come into the system. I do hope such people are pulled up.
Our narrative is of good governance. We are ensuring that justice is meted out to everybody. We are not concerned if some people are criticising “Shakti”, for example. I think you should all be concerned about people who make such allegations.
We have not put him in jail. We don’t have anything to do with it.
India will do FTAs on its terms. We are a potential superpower and given our growth trajectory, nobody in the world has any doubt this is the country to trade with. So we have to negotiate hard and get the best deal for India
Where is our role in that? The law is catching up with the people for the wrongs they did. They should have thought about the consequences when they were taking those actions. We have a robust judiciary, a robust system in India which protects everybody’s rights. You are talking about one Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader but many of his colleagues are in jail for a long time. I am sure they have gone to court many times.
They (Opposition) are most welcome to say so, nobody gets influenced by them. People are happy that Modi is being strict and taking action against wrong-doers. Bear in mind that the common man doesn’t like it if a PM stands up and says that I am helpless and corruption is a part of life. Remember how former PM Rajiv Gandhi in 1985 had said that of every rupee spent by the government, only 15 paise reached the beneficiary and the remaining went to middlemen? That’s helplessness. People like a leader who solves problems.
It was an effort to clean politics of black money and protect those who want to fund good politics. When we were in the Opposition, we found that most people were worried about giving us money because of the fear that the ruling party would create problems for them. From that experience, the party thought about bringing in a system which would give everybody a level-playing field.
You can see the numbers. Today, the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) is at the Centre, runs 17 states and Union Territories, has more than 55 per cent of MPs and more than half the MLAs in the country. But we still got less than half the donation. Why didn’t the Congress or INDIA bloc — or whatever is left of it — refuse to accept electoral bonds at inception?
We haven’t applied our mind to it. Right now, we are in election mode and PM Modi’s third term will address this issue.
I don’t think so. Ask the CBI, they take the decision. Neither did we file that case, nor did we withdraw that case. It was part of a regular process. I don’t think anybody has got relief because they became a part of NDA or BJP.
A lot of people get relief over a period of investigation, and a lot of them, irrespective of their political affiliation, get into trouble if they have done something wrong. There is an independent inquiry.
Does this report hold any sanctity? Just because it is your report doesn’t increase its credibility. That may be your assessment. I am not privy to any such facts or figures. Your perception will not define how the government or even the investigative agencies will function.
The Foreign Minister would have taken care of it. But nobody has any business to interfere in our internal affairs.
Today, the BJP-led alliance is at the Centre, runs 17 states and Union Territories, has more than 55 per cent of MPs and more than half the MLAs in the country. But we still got less than half the donation
Around 600 lawyers have also raised the same issue with the Chief Justice of India, concerned that judges should not become vulnerable to such narratives. We are not dictating any terms. What has a fact-checking unit got to do with dictating terms? If there is fake news, it is the government’s job to take it down. There has to be a due process of law.
I’m sure the legal luminaries must be pressing that issue. I don’t know what’s possible or not but I think all of you should consider how not to fall prey to fake news.
North Mumbai, with its diversity, has four to five issues at the macro level, which we can address in the next few years. First and foremost, I’ve been toying with the idea of making the country slum-free. And now that I’ve got an opportunity to represent an area, it will be a good ‘laboratory’ for me to see how we can work to make that happen. One of the ways will be getting more people to work in the spirit of cooperatives rather than being dependent on builders. I’ve already talked to a few people, who understand this business, to see if they are willing to do this as part of a CSR project. We are trying to get the local people involved.
North Mumbai needs world-class, super speciality medical facilities, a digitally-aided, quality municipal school infrastructure and efficient traffic management.
This constituency voted for PM Modi in 2014 and 2019, giving us almost a 70 per cent vote share and the largest lead in Maharashtra. I think people would be happy to see Mr Modi in his third term.
Red Sea and now Baltimore, how do you see India’s exports in the next financial year?
This year trade has been impacted because of the two conflicts in Ukraine and Israel-Palestine. We had to impose export restrictions on food to ensure that our prices and consumers were not affected by food inflation. In between, we had to put some curbs on iron ore exports when we saw that steel prices were going up pretty significantly. So broadly, some of these curbs — be it on petroleum products, iron ore, food products — will lead to near flat exports of goods, but we will continue to grow on services. This will be a year of consolidation. From $ 494 billion three years ago, we crossed $ 776 billion in 2022-23, a 55 per cent growth in two years. No economy can have a growth like this and sustain it over the years.
Black swan events. The El Nino impact is a matter of concern across the world, with global warming, heat waves and untimely rains. India is equally concerned. Therefore, our thrust is on renewable energy, sustainable consumption, zero carbon footprints. We are one of the lowest emitters on a per capita basis worldwide.
Neither do we allow anyone to interfere in our elections, nor do we interfere in anyone else’s. We believe it’s a free world and everybody is free to choose their own leader. We work with anyone who gets elected by their people.
That’s a choice for people in the US. India has no say, role or comment on it.
We are unable to understand what that alliance even is. In Kerala, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said the Congress cannot be trusted for taking on the BJP. Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee came to Mumbai for an alliance meeting but she doesn’t have an alliance with the Congress, the principal party, in West Bengal. In Punjab, AAP has thrown out the Congress. All the Congressmen are running helter skelter. For us, the Opposition is immaterial as we can’t see who their leader is.
The fight is now over. I saw a comment by some leader (from the Sharad Pawar faction of NCP) on Govinda (the former Congress Lok Sabha MP who joined the Shiv Sena) to the effect, “When Govinda was young, he was a hit; now that he is old, he has become a flop.” Unhi ki party ka leader ka career unhone apne khud ka hi comment karke khatam kar diya hai. Jo hit tha, hai, woh humare saath hai (By making such a comment, they have destroyed the career of their own leader. Whoever was a hit in the past and present is with us). That says it all.
People of India have made up their minds to support Mr Modi in an unprecedented way. Therefore, both our targets of 370 and 400 stand. We will achieve both.
As we move ahead on our development journey, we will be calibrating tariffs, balancing the interests of the domestic industry, encouraging domestic manufacturing and growth, so that we can have more jobs in the country. At the same time, we must respect that we have 1.4 billion consumers, who should get a product or service at a fair price. It’s important to protect our domestic farmers, the MSME sector and allow domestic industry to flourish and create jobs for our people. We have to look at the whole value chain and make sure it doesn’t get distorted. Our tariff structure doesn’t necessarily go only by averages but by the effective rate on each product. So most of our products are under 10 per cent, some may have five, some 7.5 per cent. Then there are a few outliers.
Even today, the US has some of the highest tariffs on individual items, as high as 300 per cent. Among emerging economies, we are at comparable levels. More so because some of them don’t have transparent economic or pricing systems.
Electric mobility is the order of the day, especially in cities. Just like semiconductors, the electric vehicle (EV) sector will generate jobs and we can become the EV capital of the world. Tesla brings with it a whole ecosystem as do BMW and Vinfast. Unlike the Congress, which opened up the sector and allowed Hyundai, Kia and everybody else to import their products from Japan, Korea, Taiwan and China, we want them to source domestically. In our EV policy, we are putting domestic value addition as a condition for investment.
Till we create an ecosystem while encouraging massive investments in EVs, we will not proliferate. I’d love to see every vehicle sold in India by 2030-32 to be an EV.
