200 days of Modi govt: Jaitley best performer, 'Make in India' most promising initiative, says poll

The finance minister has been the most impressive among his Cabinet colleagues in the past 200 days. Make in India trumps other government initiatives like Swachh Bharat and Smart Cities, the disbanding of the Planning Commission is touted as the most significant policy reform and prime minister Modi’s visit to the United States is perceived to be the most successful of all his foreign trips.

Those are the findings of an ET Magazine poll to which some 6,775 visitors to economictimes.indiatimes.com responded between December 10 and 12.



Jaitley clearly has begun well, with a little over half of the respondents voting for him as the best-performing minister so far.

Piyush Goyal, minister of state with independent charge for power, coal and new and renewable energy, and Nirmala Sitharaman, minister of state (independent charge) for ministry of commerce and industry as well as minister of state for finance and corporate affairs, are a distant second and third, respectively.

Jaitley also gets a fair bit of support for his — and the BJP-led government’s — crusade to bring back money from overseas; only 23% feel the government won’t succeed in this endeavour whilst 44% are optimistic (the rest aren’t sure).

Replacing the Planning Commission with a new body and increasing FDI limits in critical sectors are the reforms that have impressed the respondents the most.



Surprisingly, the relaunch of the savings scheme Kisan Vikas Patra (KVP) isn’t really a big hit, with only 6% of the respondents seeing it as significant; perhaps many of them agree with the Congress view that KVPs could be used to launder black money.



The good news for the embattled Congress is that the party is still being considered the most effective Opposition. Well, the recent ‘slips-of-tongue’ in Parliament by the ruling party may be doing their bit to help the Grand Old Party get its mojo back.