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India: Gujarat Curtainraiser

India: Gujarat Curtainraiser
Alex Kliment
By Alex KlimentDecember 12, 2017
Alex Kliment
Alex wears a few different caps and tips them all regularly. He writes for the GZERO Daily, works as a field correspondent for GZERO's nationally syndicated TV show GZERO WORLD WITH IAN BREMMER, and writes/directs/voices GZERO's award-winning puppet satire show PUPPET REGIME. Prior to joining GZERO, Alex worked as an analyst covering Russia and broader Emerging Markets for Eurasia Group. He has also written for the Financial Times from Washington, DC, and Sao Paulo Brazil. In his spare time, he makes short films and composes scores for long ones. He studied history and Slavic literature at Columbia and has a Master's from Johns Hopkins SAIS. He's a native New Yorker, a long-suffering Mets fan, and owns too many bicycles.
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This week’s election in Gujarat, the famously business-friendlystate formerly run by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, are a big test for him as national elections loom in 2019.

Polls show that although his BJP party will keep control of the state, it may actually loseseats in what would amount to a shocking upset. Some of Modi’s national economic measures — scrapping large cash notes and imposing a new nationwide tax — have upset small businesses and farmers, and the Congress Party is fitfully emerging from the political wilderness in Gujarat by mobilizing caste-based grievances against the BJP.

Why does it matter? A home turf bruising in Gujarat may push Modi and the BJP to amplify the core Hindu nationalist aspects of its platform to boost support ahead of 2019 — but that could deepen existing divides in the world’s largest democracy.

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