It is an outstanding feature of the NDA leadership ~ positive or negative is a matter of opinion ~ that it is unable to project any of its moves, and indeed some are laudable, without trying to garner political advantage by contrasting it with what prevailed earlier.

Some critics insist this points to a deeply ingrained inferiority complex; it is always trying to prove itself as the most successful government in independent India. And when talking of “70 years” it conveniently forgets that for some of those years the government was headed by Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

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Does the “Modi-fied” brand of re-written history seek to erase the tenure of the statesman who ensured national respectability for the Bharatiya Janata Party? A tricky query for the few members of the present ministerial council who had earlier served under that much-loved Prime Minister, in whose book hate was a dirty word? The point about comparisons and contrasts is powerfully articulated by the manner in which the propaganda machine is projecting as a magic wand the recently increased Minimum Support Prices for select kharif crops.

A spate of public meetings have been organised at which the NDA leadership tries to sell the line that after the summer crop is harvested and brought to the market there will be a considerable easing of the agrarian distress of recent years.

It is too early to take a call on that claim, but it is valid to ask if the Prime Minister, and his team, enhance their credentials by pointing out that never before ~ at least not during Congress-rule ~ had such a hefty increase been announced.

For Mr Narendra Modi has proceeded to use the “MSP missile” to attack the UPA, and now Mamata Banerjee’s “syndicate raj”. Political sagacity would have suggested that the government await the farmers’ verdict ~ rather than rush to try and reap a political harvest.

Which only underscores the criticism that every move of the government ispoll-related, it confuses electoral gain with quality governance. Surely that is a display of immaturity. Missiles can, at times, go rogue and actually hurt those who fired them.

Several experts have pointed out MSPs are only one component of agricultural well-being. While the availability of fertiliser is no longer problematic, the monsoon still has some way to run, so it might be premature to assume adequate water supply.

And then comes that vicious cycle in which an inept procurement apparatus results in a bumper crop forcing distress sales. Cow vigilantes and a restrictive order (since withdrawn) on cattle sales have already crippled the livestock sector.

Hopefully, the prophets of doom will be silenced, but what if even all goes according to Raisina Hill’s script the farm scene does not improve substantially? The fall-out could be a political backlash of the boasting: the MSP gamble, for all the trumpet-blowing, is no guaranteed banker.