AS STATE POLL APPROACHES, PM MODI GETS ACTIVE TO DEVELOP UTTAR PRADESH IN NOVEMBER 2021 IT WAS RANKED BIG STATE WITH WORST GOVERNANCE

Election is Uttar Pradesh is round the corner and our Prime Minister Narendra Modi is trying his best to
develop the state by inaugurating development projects worth thousands of crore. He seems to have
risen from the slumber he was in only couple of months ago when election surveys have started
prediction sharp fall in BJP’s electoral fortune, and it was only in the beginning of November 2021,
Uttar Pradesh was ranked the big state with worst governance. Modi is also all out to end “cycle of
corruption” in the state and had unleashed the central agencies against it that have been raiding
continuously, just before the election.

Obviously all these smacks politics since they are doing everything in action, and telling everything in
words, with direct or indirect, reference to earlier governments that allegedly did not develop Uttar
Pradesh, and using the word “cycle” that refers to the BJP’s chief opposition SP whose election symbol
is “bicycle”. Let it be so. Everyone has right to do politics and Modi and his Party also have, barring the
politics of hatred and communalism that they and their supporters have been increasingly indulging as
the state is moving closure to election trying to provoke non-Hindu communities for polarization of
Hindu votes in their favour. It is further proof that the state is worst governed, as it was ranked only two
months ago.

In the November ranking as per the Public Affairs Index prepared by Public Affairs Centre, Uttar
Pradesh had scored the last rank 18 for the quality of its governance among the big states of the country.
It was despite the fact that our so called champions of the good governance, Chief Minister of Uttar
Pradesh, Yogi Adityanath have been ruling the state for about 4 and half years, and our PM Modi is
ruling the country for 7 and half years. They have a record of “beating the dead horse, sometimes who
died 75 years ago” for their own failure and maladministration during their own tenures.

The Public Affairs Index was a composite score for three broad factors – growth, equity, and
sustainability – which were based on 43 indicators. Just before Yogi government came to power, the
state ranked 12 in the same index. In 2017, the state slipped to 14th, further slipped to 17th in 2019, and
18th in 2020, the bottom that it retains even in 2021.

On Good Governance Day on December 25 last, Union Minister of Home, Amit Shah had released
Good Governance Index 2021 prepared by the Department of Administration Reforms and Public
Grievances (DARPG). Though it said that Uttar Pradesh has increased its score by 8.9 compared to the
score in 2019, it was only to conceal the start reality that it scored only 4.63 only a little more than 4.25.

Uttar Pradesh was placed among eight states in Group B which also included Bihar, Chhattisgarh,
Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Rajasthan, and West Bengal. Among these eight Uttar Pradesh
ranked ranked 5th, while Madhya Pradesh ranked first. Uttar Pradesh performed better than only Bihar,
Odisha, and West Bengal. Uttar Pradesh ranked 7th in the Group B in Agriculture and allied sectors,
Public Infrastructure and Utility, Economic Governance, and Social Welfare and Development, and 8th
in Public Health Sector. The Index was difficult to understand for common people and hence it becomes
easy for the Modi government to claim that UP is doing well against the reality.

Take the example of public health sector, for which Uttar Pradesh was ranked 8th among the Group B
states in the Good Governance Index. To understand it better, one needs to see how this ranking
translates into the NITI Aayog’s Health Index 2021, released just a few days after on December 27,
2021. In this fourth edition of the Heath Index 2019-20, Uttar Pradesh ranked worst in India in terms of
overall health performance among 19 large states with somehow exceeding only a pass mark scoring
30.57 per cent. As against these, Yogi government in Uttar Pradesh and Modi government in the Centre
has been praising Uttar Pradesh for good governance, ease of doing business, development, and high
incremental performance only to show rosy picture of the state only to prevent adverse political fallout
in the coming assembly election.

To save BJP in the election PM Modi himself have been inaugurating numerous projects in Uttar
Pradesh for the last few months to show how serious they are regarding development in Uttar Pradesh in
a bid to tempt voters that if they chose BJP for their ruler, all the inaugurated projects would be
completed soon. At several occasion Modi has also not refrained from a veiled threat to voter referring
“double engine” ie both the governments at the centre and the state led by the BJP for speedy
development. An analysis of his language indicate that if states would not elect BJP, their development
would not be smooth under the Union led by BJP. Such a temptation or threat, whatever it may by, is
neither democratic not according to the principle of free and fair election.

Modi inaugurated multiple development projects on November 19 worth Rs 3,240 crore, Noida airport
phase one worth Rs 10,050 crore on November 25, three Mega Projects – AIIMS, ICMR and Fertiliser
Plant worth Rs 9,600 crore on December 7, Saryu Canal project worth Rs9802 crore on December 11,
transferred Rs 1000 crore to the bank accounts of self-help group apart from several development
projects including an expressway worth Rs22,496 crore and airport worth Rs260 crore on December 21,
multiple development projects worth Rs2,095 crore on December 23, and there are many others.

Modi is in inauguration spree especially in poll-bound states worth billion of rupees. However, the
billion dollar question is whether it is free and fair, ethically, vis-à-vis, the opposition political parties
that cannot do such inauguration to tempt voters, especially when the election is round the corner?
Disproportionately large number of inaugurations in the last few months while doing only a little in 4
and half years in five years tenure must be interpreted as ‘tempting or bribing voters’. The suffering
people of Uttar Pradesh must take note of what was actually delivered by the governments, the last hour
inaugurations, and election season raids to stem “corruptions” that were allowed during almost the full
tenure of the ruling establishments.