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A recent report of the Niti Aayog -which ranks Uttar Pradesh as the country's third poorest state - has not only caused embarrassment to the BJP in the election bound state, but has also busted claims that "double-engine" governments bring about development.
In past weeks, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath have been on a foundation laying and ribbon cutting spree; all the while blaming past governments for the lack of development in past years. Laying the foundation stone for an international airport at Jewar, Prime Minister Modi blamed past governments for keeping UP in "darkness and deprivation", adding that the state was getting its due under the double-engine government of the BJP.
As the Niti Aayog report has been released just a few months before the assembly elections, the BJP's election campaigners have been left rather jolted.
The report, categorising the Multi Dimensional Index (MDI) places UP at the third lowest spot amongst all states, as 37.79 percent of the state's population has been categorized as "poor". Only Bihar and Jharkhand (with 51.91 percent and 42.16 percent poor population) are worse off as compared to UP. Among the five worst performing states are Madhya Pradesh (36.65 percent poor) and Meghalaya (32.67 percent).
Four of the five worst performing states (Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Meghalaya and Uttar Pradesh) are currently being run either directly by the BJP, or in alliance with regional parties. On the other hand, states where non-NDA parties are in power have put up a far better performance. As the Niti Aayog report points out, Left-ruled Kerala demonstrates the best performance(with 0.71 percent poor people) while DMK-ruled Kerala has 4.89 percent poor people as against 5.59 percent in Congress-ruled Punjab. Therefore, the claim of BJP leaders that a double-engine government brings double-growth has started to ring hollow.