Releasing a 20-year report card for Madhya Pradesh, Union Home Minister Amit Shah said in Bhopal Sunday that the state had undergone a golden period of poverty alleviation under the BJP government and that it has shed its “BIMARU” tag. He also said that 10 per cent of India’s population was lifted out of poverty in the nearly 10 years of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government. The PM, he said, has pledged to make India developed and self-reliant. Accusing the Congress of corruption, Shah listed a number of scams that he said the Opposition party was responsible for. He said the people of Madhya Pradesh should decide whether they want their state to come in the list of such scams or in the list of developed states. Talking about the period of Congress rule in Madhya Pradesh, Shah said: “In 2002, the Congress passed a budget of only Rs 23,100 crore, which we took up to Rs 3,14,000 crore – a rate of increase that is the highest in India. The education budget went from Rs 2,456 crore under Congress rule to Rs 3,800 crore under the BJP. The health budget was Rs 580 crore, which has been increased to Rs 16,000 crore. The Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan budget was increased from Rs 844 crore to Rs 7,000 crore. The SC, ST and OBC budget was Rs 1,056 crore, and has been increased to Rs 64,390 crore by the BJP government. The per capita income went up from Rs 11,700 to Rs 1.40 lakh, which is a record-breaking feat in itself.” During Congress rule, Shah said, the state had got the BIMARU tag. The BIMARU acronym has often been used to refer to Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh, usually to imply that these states lagged in terms of economic growth, healthcare, education, and other indices. “In the last 20 years (2003-2023), the BJP government in the state has salvaged Madhya Pradesh from this stigma, and this period has become a golden period of poverty alleviation. In these years, the BJP government has liberated the state from poverty and laid the foundation for its emergence as a developed, atma nirbhar (self-reliant) state during Amrit Kaal,” he said. The Congress, Shah said, hindered the Modi government’s poverty alleviation schemes. “They hamstrung the entire movement (for poverty alleviation), and the Kamal Nath government was known as the ‘corruption Nath’ government,” he added. Shah said that while the PM has “generously released funds for the development” of the state, the people of Madhya Pradesh have also “contributed immensely to the victory of Modiji”. “In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, Madhya Pradesh gave 27 out of its 29 seats to the BJP, and it became 28 in 2019,” he said, adding, “I believe that even the difference of one seat we have today will vanish in 2024.” Assembly elections set to be held later this year in the state would be an “election to transform Madhya Pradesh into a fully developed state, and to move it towards total liberation from poverty”, he said. Shah on Sunday also addressed the BJP’s state executive committee in Gwalior. There, he urged party workers to resolve to help the BJP win more than 150 seats in the coming Assembly election. He asked them to work towards flying the saffron flag of the BJP in Madhya Pradesh, “from panchayats to the Parliament for the next 30 years”. In the Assembly election, Shah said, “Casteism, appeasement, and nepotism will emerge, but these tactics will not work because the people of the state have come to know the Congress well. This time, nationalism will triumph. The goal is to gather 50 per cent of the votes.”
