I'll quote something else in that article, because I've seen the same thing paraphrased by half a dozen different sources now. including MSM folks like Sagarika Ghose and Rana Ayyub who went out into the heartland themselves. Others who have stated this same thing, are PP, Chintamani and another twitter handle who I can't recall but is pro-INC viewpoint:
People in the remotest part of the country (for example, a family staying in the middle of a small agricultural field on the outskirts of a remote village in the most backward Bundelkhand region of Uttar Pradesh) believe that Modi is doing his best for the poor. Never mind if some of the schemes have not reached them. Either they have seen others in their village/neighbourhood benefit from those schemes, and if that is also not the case, they believe that the poor at large in the country must be benefitting.
They blame the local administration or their village pradhan/sarpanch/ mukhiya for any shortcomings — and not Modi.
The image of being a single man who has committed his life to the nation, and someone who has seen poverty up and close, only adds to this narrative.
IMHO, this sentiment is something we discount here, because probably no one on this forum has been amongst the poor and destitute. That's not to claim everyone here's a SoBo type, but we have generally not collectively known desperate poverty. As a result, we cannot gauge how they feel. We are aware of his expressed sincerity. We may admire it, but we are not personally connected to it.
Now, you can be a Modi supporter and appreciate this broad sentiment, or you can be a Modi opponent and find it unfortunate thinking that he's a fraudster conning people.
When you look at it from this perspective, RaGa's on the message 'chor hai' quote makes sense. It's designed to cultivate the expanded belief that Modi too, like the sarpanch or mukhiya, is a chor . However, the converse is that, if there's no traction for those words, it fuels an even greater resentment against those namecalling him, tilting even more fence sitters into the Modi camp, creating a silent wave.
I call it silent, because it's not an incumbency driven response. Rather, it's a visceral personal response to being offended by the poor characterization of someone the voter holds dear in their belief of his sincerety. In such situations, voters don't angrily complain, as they might when something wasn't delivered as promised. Instead they go out and punish the namecallers at the ballot machine.
Is that what's happening ? Maybe. I don't know, but the sentiment is being repeatedly stated by too many people, not just on one side of the political spectrum.