Computer, after the last five years, you can't genuinely believe that Modi's interested in 'liberalizing the economy' or 'decreasing India's bureaucratic state' right? Literally in the article you just posted, it says that Modi's increased popularity might be coming from a 10% quota for the economically weak and cash handouts for farmers. Like do you have any reason to believe any of the stuff you're saying other than 'Rahul Gandhi sucks'?
The main reason why his popularity increased is due to his decisive response against Pakistani Terrorists, and it makes sense as it is the job for a leader to respond strongly against terrorism especially when a foreign government may have had a role in that attack.
Also another article I posted gave reasons why people who aren't nationalists or even liberals can like him and why almost even every Indian-American Bernie supporter I know supports Modi as well.
For the reasons I like him well he has done a great job on infrastructure, has done a good job responding to terrorist attacks, he has done a better job than almost every leader in the world right now(To be fair that isnt saying much at all given the state of world leadership today, and the fact that Gujarat Economy did well during his tenure as chief minister.
Now I like the CDN Tories more than the BJP and I like the Non Trumpist GOP better as well so if we had a leader from one of those parties become President/CDN PM they would become my favorite world leader