During the campaign a popular slogan was ‘Bahut hui mehengai ki maar/Ab ki baar, Modi sarkaar!’10 The BJP government earned a windfall of US $40 billion or ₹233,000 crore in its first three years, thanks to a collapse in benchmark crude oil prices from $108.05 to $48.82 (May 2014 to May 2017) whose benefits it refused to pass on to the aam aadmi.11 Instead it levied in extra taxes what might have been saved at the pump, failing to produce a stimulus to the economy; it is estimated that the government earned ₹4.5 lakh crore every year since 2014 through excise on petrol and diesel alone.12
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