Urbane and articulate, Milind Deora seems just at home in a blues concert strumming his Stratocaster the way he is championing the cause of migrant workers; green warriors, micro or big enterprises over issues as diverse as deforestation, minimum wages, LGBT rights, local body tax or privacy laws.From the small traders of Kalbadevi, the Dawoodi Bohras of Bhendi Bazaar, the fishing Koli community or even the multimillionaires of the South Bombay zip code, most will admit Deora is his father’s son plus one. Yet, when Mukesh Ambani exhorted recently that “Milind is the man for South Mumbai” “with in-depth knowledge of the social, economic and cultural ecosystem of the constituency”, just days before Mumbai went to polls, it was time to sit up and take notice.Uday Kotak too joined in to publicly endorse Congress’ Lok Sabha aspirant, saying, “Milind relates to a Mumbaikar.”But however epoch-making or unprecedented this open endorsement by two of the most successful businessmen east of Suez may seem, at the end of the day, this isn’t really about Deora the individual. Nor is it about the party or ideology he represents. This is actually about who they did not.The message was economic. Milind =Business; Business = Jobs. That’s exactly why India Inc voted for change in 2014. Kotak says, “Milind truly represents Mumbai ka connection.” Question is, does Prime Minister Narendra Modi? Large sections in this city of commerce, entrepreneurial dreams and finance may feel he does not.Unlike corporate America, Indian businesses have traditionally been political fence sitters, unwilling to support any side till the landscape throws up a winner. Seldom do they wear their ideology on their sleeves. Especially in today’s frenzied, polarised environment, most would not dare. Industry chambers have capitulated, as have captains of business who may have even showed any signs of dissent.This is hardly new, though. Even in 2002, after the Gujarat riots, senior business leaders like Rahul Bajaj, Anu Aga and Deepak Parekh, among others, had raised their voices against the Gujarat government. The Vajpayee government at the Centre reacted, as did the state, by cold shouldering or outright boycott of CII events.Cut to a decade later. Everyone knows about what happened when one of the above mentioned motley group lashed out against the current regime to highlight that nothing had changed on the ground in the first nine months of the NDA government, often considered a honeymoon period.Let me ask: can a dozen of Bombay Club’s elite write an open letter to the prime minister, the way they did in 2013 to Manmohan Singh, to express collective concern?Before you scream where is the governance deficit, policy paralysis, cold shouldering of bold reforms, extraneous influences affecting decisions and corruption in the last five years, let us be clear: nobody is happy about the raid raj, mounting receivables from public sector undertakings that are causing havoc to cash flows and balance sheets, or policy interventions like reverse bidding that killed the power sector, and many more.India Inc is hurting, and the number of those who are bruised or battered is going up.The first shock hit right after Modi came to power and cut access for most to take on cronyism. That sent several sulking. Then came the bankruptcy law that precipitated the biggest churn for our homegrown capitalists. For the first time, they now faced the real prospect of losing their crown jewels.The politics of the IBC process also ensured that defaulters were barred from bidding for their own assets, unlike in the US. Money suddenly got tainted as the prospect of taking the country’s unscrupulous crony capitalists to task became politically too tantalising. End result: delays and red tape in some of the most high-profile cases.Equally disconcerted are the global investors, the biggest fans of this regime, at the sudden policy reversals in the new high-growth areas of e-commerce and fintech, after billions poured into the country, riding on the promise of maximum governance, minimum government, and regulatory stability. Imagine spending $16 billion on an acquisition to make a big-bang re-entry into India and then waking up to find out the law of the land has changed in what they would claim protectionist moves to safeguard large local players.Jobs, or a lack of them, is one of Congress’ top poll pitches this time around. And when tycoons are heard talking of how Deora is the right guy for South Mumbai to create employment opportunities in the city, the subtext should be clear. And the signs of an exploding pressure cooker are for all to see and take note.