Bihar is an interesting battleground for BJP. The importance of the cow-belt is clear from the way Mr Modi has been berating Nitish Kumar lately. There is a bitterness from a friendship that went sour. There is also a battle of ideologies. And an attempt to lend credibility to ideology by showing correlation to economic performance. Mr Modi mocks Nitish Kumar 's claims to having done a better job in Bihar - than Mr Modi has done in Gujarat.
State of affairs: Gujarat is obviously a prosperous state. Poverty trends in the states is an interesting table to look at. Credit-Deposit Ratio (CDR) maybe an interesting measure of confidence banking sector has in a region's growth prospects. It is an indicator of readily available cash/aid that can be used to fuel further growth. There does seem to be a trend of higher CDRs in more prosperous regions in the nation.
Growth rates: The data is quite interesting. The two chief ministers have different problems when they try to showcase their work. Gujarat is a prosperous state. Bihar is trying to reinvent itself after the division from Jharkhand - at the same time it is recovering from some ill-considered political choices that the people made in 90s. There are many interesting questions in this discussion. Is it easier to build on an already solid base ? Is it harder to show great growth rate when you are already doing well ? Is it harder to dig yourself out of a hole ? i.e. to jump start a dead economy ?
Here are documents from planning commission of India website - growth rate in agricultural (and allied) sector and growth rate in industrial sector. Reflect on the data for yourself - you can see that both of the chief-ministers have been doing good work. Which one has done a better job though ? [ You can see more data/tables at the planning commission website. ]
It is heartening that the debate is being elevated to these levels - it is not often that economic performance becomes a basis for credibility in the Indian elections.
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