For years, the Congress party has been blamed for poverty in India, and rightly so. The nepotism and corruption prevalent in the Congress party and the socialist policies that it implemented are definitely the reason behind the fact that India is not even in the top 100 among the nations with the highest per capita income. However, there are many regional parties that pushed India further backwards and implemented policies that were even worse than those implemented by Congress.
From the Samajwadi party to RJD, TMC to Communists, Dravidian parties to YSRCP, the regional parties have done more damage to the National Interest and Citizens of the country than the Grand Old Party – Congress.
The only opposition to the BJP should be the congress party. Congress is a hungry ogre but the regional parties are pure evil. They eat their states like a school of hungry Piranhas. Imagine a TMC government in 3 states or AAP government in 4 states or Sena-NCP in 5. Nightmare.
— Atul Mishra (@TheAtulMishra) March 20, 2021
Take, for example, the state of West Bengal, which used to the richest state of the country till the 60s and 70s, and Kolkata was India’s pre-eminent commercial hub. Thanks to the subsequent 34 years of the CPM and 10 years of the regional party TMC, Bengal today is among the poorest states in India and lags behind in almost all socio-economic indicators except for literacy.
In Tamil Nadu, the regional Dravidian parties did better as far as the economy is concerned, but the state became the hub of anti-Brahminical activism and witnessed a rise in conversion activities. Today, both major parties in the state are the Dravidian ones and are known for their anti-North India rhetoric as well as rampant corruption.
Coming to Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, the two states which have a combined population equal to that of the United States, are among the poorest states of the country and they are being ruled by regional parties for the last four decades except for the brief stint of BJP in UP in the late 1990s and the Yogi government in 2017.
In just four years, the Yogi government brought the state to the second position in the list of states with the highest GDP from the fifth position. This shows that the state has the potential to become an economic powerhouse, but the previous governments formed by regional parties, SP and BSP were too incompetent to utilise that.
Most regional parties with few exceptions like Biju Janata Dal (BJD) and Telugu Desam Party (TDP) come to power by appeasing one or two particular communities and work for the welfare of those communities of the respective states instead of focusing welfare of the citizens as a whole and wealth creation. Prime Minister Modi used to address the people of Gujarat as “6 crore Gujaratis,” but no other regional party picked it up until he came to power at the Centre in 2014 because most of the regional parties see themselves as representatives of the dominant community, not of the state as a whole.
Maharashtra and Haryana, the two states where Congress has been in power for the longest period since independence, are today among the richest states of the country. Haryana has the highest per capita income among the large states while Maharashtra has the highest Gross States Domestic Product (GSDP) in the country.
One might argue that these states benefitted from the fact that there was clear sync between union and state governments, but the fact is that the Finance Commission grants are the same for every state, and the Union government has little flexibility as far as the financial favour to particular states is concerned. The fact is that these are states that implemented better policies when compared to those ruled by the regional parties.
Today, almost all the states where BJP or Congress alternatively come to power, like Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Himachal Pradesh, and Uttarakhand, are better off compared to those ruled by regional parties.
Another instance of the same can be Andhra Pradesh, where the Jagan Mohan Reddy government is systematically destroying the economy, politics, and society of the state with irrelevant policies. One would never expect such policies from Ashok Gehlot or Bhupesh Baghel, no matter how they come to power. The simple reason is that the states of Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh are ruled by Congress, while Andhra Pradesh is ruled by YSRCP – a regional party.
There is a very wide variety among the regional parties, but the majority of them have proved to be worse for the state compared to the Grand Old Party Congress. India probably needs a two-party system like the United States, and, instead of dreaming of a ‘Congress-mukt Bharat,’ one shall pray for ‘regional parties mukt-Bharat.’