Narendra Modi has completed six months as the Indian premier. Politically, he has continued with a string of successes and his popularity continues to rise as is evident by his electoral victories in the recently concluded assembly elections in Maharashtra and Haryana.

For the first time Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has been able to form government in both the states. While in Haryana the BJP has formed government on its own steam by getting clear majority in the state assembly, in Maharashtra the BJP has emerged as the single largest party, formed government on its own and won the trust vote in the state assembly though erstwhile ally like the Shiv Sena and arch-rival Congress party have cried foul over the manner in which the trust vote was passed by voice vote.

Modi’s BJP is likely to come up with a strong performance in two other state assemblies, Jammu and Kashmir and Jharkhand, for which the five-phase election process has already begun. The BJP is also the favorite for the upcoming prestigious election for Delhi assembly, which is likely to take place in February 2015. If one goes by recent opinion polls and election surveys, the BJP may well be able to cobble up a simple majority in the Delhi assembly polls.

All this shows that the Modi juggernaut continues to roll on and the Modi magic has not diminished one bit. He has had another major creditable achievement in the past six months, this time on the foreign policy front. He has already visited eight countries. Out of the six months he has been in office so far, Modi has spent a little over a month abroad.

Modi’s frequent foreign trips have triggered fun in the social media, purportedly by his political detractors. When Modi returned home on Nov. 20 from his three-nation trip to Myanmar, Australia and Fiji, one message on the social media joked thus: “Breaking news. PM Modi is on a visit to India.”

Another satirical post on the social media is about a conversation between Modi and his foreign minister, Sushma Swaraj. Modi, on arrival at Delhi airport, sees Swaraj waiting to receive him. He asks, “Sushma ji, you have come again to receive me?” The minister replies: “No, I just wanted to ask you who is the foreign minister; you or me?”

But these are evidently jokes by his political detractors who are down in the dumps and always looking for the slightest opportunity to score brownie points. Modi has done well on the foreign policy front and has emerged as a global leader. It is not very often when one sees an Indian prime minister taking such a keen and pro-active interest in foreign policy issues so early in his tenure. It is all the more commendable for a person like Modi who for the last 13 years was tied down to a state, Gujarat.

But just a day before he was to complete six months in office, Modi got a severe jolt in his private life on Nov. 24 from none other than his wife Jashodaben. Modi has hardly spent any time with his wife and the two have been living separately for decades, though apparently with mutual consent.

Modi had always left the “Spouse Name” column in his election papers whenever he contested elections in Gujarat. It was only during the April-May general elections that he had duly filled his wife’s name in his election papers, thus publicly acknowledging for the first time his marital status. But what Jashodaben has just done is nothing but a bolt from the blue for Modi. She filed a request under Right to Information (RTI) Act. On Nov. 24, she went to the office of Mehsana district superintendent of police and submitted RTI application, demanding to know the details of her personal security guards, saying she and her family are scared of them.

Ironically, while Jashodaben’s security personnel of the elite Special Protection Guards (SPG) travel in fancy cars, she (the protected person) travels by public transport. The 62-year-old retired teacher has of late been giving on-record interviews expressing her desire to live with her husband of 45 years in New Delhi but Modi has refused to budge.

Modi’s wife filing an RTI application instead of picking up a phone to talk to her husband directly only implies that she does not have access to Modi though she has all the VVIP trappings. Moreover, neither Modi nor the Prime Minister’s Office nor the BJP can any longer claim that it is a private and personal matter because Jashodaben has taken a public route — an RTI application — to redress her grievance.

This is the biggest and most serious setback to Modi. Opposition parties have now got a major issue on a platter to embarrass Modi and the BJP. Jashodaben’s RTI request has torpedoed Modi and taken the sheen off his important landmark of completing six months in office. Clearly, more turbulent times are ahead for Modi on this score.

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The writer is a New Delhi-based independent journalist and a political commentator who tweets @Kishkindha.