Survey: The Power Index

With the Narendra Modi government about to demit office, it’s interesting to evaluate the cabinet’s performance. While anecdotal evidence does suggest that some of the ministers have been outstanding performers and some have struggled to cope up, we thought it was best based on a survey.

So, we chose the ministries that have an economic imprint, and did a Corporate India survey and an India survey. Needless to say, the results are surprising. Or, perhaps, not so surprising.

For instance, in the Corporate India survey, Sushma Swaraj (External Affairs), Piyush Goyal (Coal) and Nitin Gadkari (Road Transport & Highways) are the best performers, in this order — with 70 per cent (for the first two) and 68 per cent for the third voting as “good or outstanding” performance.

Interestingly, the trio does better than even PM Narendra Modi with 64 per cent saying that the PM’s performance has been “good or outstanding”.

Suresh Prabhu (Commerce & Industry) and Nirmala Sitharaman (Defence) are seen better than even the PM, but below the trio of Sushma, Goyal and Gadkari.

In the Nation survey, it’s Sushma Swaraj (76 per cent), Nitin Gadkari (74 per cent), Piyush Goyal (72 per cent) at the very top, followed by Sitharaman (70 per cent), and PM Modi (68 per cent).

The broad contours of the both the surveys go along with the anecdotal evidence. What doesn’t not fit into the said template is the PM’s performance — which is ranked here below four or five ministers.

Among the worst three performers in the Corporate Survey are Anant Geete (Heavy Industries, 22 per cent), Harsh Vardhan (Science & Technology, 24 per cent) and Dharmendra Pradhan (Petroleum, 32 per cent).

The case of the latter is particularly surprising because Pradhan is showcased as one of the success stories of the Modi government, with his ministry-led Ujjwala having a huge impact on a large part of the Indian population.

In the Nation survey, Anant Geete (18 per cent), Harsh Vardhan (Environment, 24 per cent) and Harsh Vardhan again (Science & Tech, 24 per cent) are perceived to be the worst performers. Pradhan ranks at the 13th position, with 40 per cent saying he is “good or outstanding”.

In the Corporate India survey, Arun Jaitley is ranked at the 9th position, with 50 per cent saying he is either good or outstanding. In the India survey, on the other hand, Jaitely is tanked at the 11th position, with 46 per cent saying he’s either good or outstanding.

For Radha Mohan Singh, too, 50 per cent of the respondents say good or outstanding in the Corporate survey, while in the nation survey, 48 per cent root for him.

Suresh Prabhu (Civil Aviation) gets 36 per cent of the Corporate India “good or outstanding” votes while he gets 42 per cent of India votes.

The BW-Decode Survey reached out to 500 corporate India leaders across 12 metros, and 5,000 respondents, chosen randomly, across the country.

Research Agency: The fieldwork, data compilation, and analysis was done by Decode Research and Analytics led by Havish Madhvapaty, Founder, Havish M. Consulting.