Modi and Moody's fail to gauge nation's mood; PM must fight next election abroad: Congress

New Delhi: After Moody’s upgraded India’s sovereign rating and a survey claimed that Prime Minister Narendra Modi was still a “popular leader”, the Congress on Friday said both Modi and Moody’s have “failed to gauge the mood of the nation”. [caption id=“attachment_4190559” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] File image of Congress leader Randeep Surjewala. News18[/caption] The party said: “After destroying India’s economy, the Modi government was clutching at straws to claim lost credibility. “Modiji and Moody’s ‘Jodi’ have failed,” Congress spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala tweeted. “Hunger deaths, farmers shootings, agri distress, job losses, lowest credit ratings, rising prices, plunging exports, flawed GST, demonetisation disaster, stagnant growth are the real indices to measure it,” he added. “They rely upon a World Bank report of Delhi/Mumbai to claim all is well and quote a Pew survey of 2,464 people to claim victory. “At this pace, Modiji should be fighting the next election abroad,” Surjewala added. US credit rating agency Moody’s on Friday upgraded India’s sovereign rating to Baa2 from its lowest investment grade of Baa, while changing the outlook for the country’s rating to stable from positive. Moody’s said its report was based on the Indian government’s “wide-ranging programme of economic and institutional reforms”. A survey by Pew Research Centre, a nonpartisan American think tank based in Washington, said that over three years into office, Modi’s popularity was still at par with what it was in 2015 and that 70 percent of Indians were “satisfied” with the way things were going on.