Opinion Rooted in the region

Until 13 years ago this month,the two states were part of the same state. And on the face of it,these two central Hindi-belt states still have much in common. High rates of poverty,serious development challenges and large,marginalised Adivasi populations. They rank 27th and 28th among all states and Union territories in their rates of literacy; they have the highest rates of infant mortality of all states except Uttar Pradesh; and have faced serious challenges of adult and childhood under-nutrition.

Singh and Chouhan entered the elections seeking to convince voters that they have improved governance and development in their states. On the other side,Sonia Gandhi campaigned in both states by accusing the state governments of failing to faithfully implement Centrally sponsored schemes initiated by the UPA,such as MNREGA and Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan. In both Chhattisgarh and MP,the campaigns appeared to pitch a state-level BJP leadership against the central Congress leadership. This impression was heightened by the fact that the Congress did not anoint or empower a clear chief ministerial candidate in either state. While the BJP seeks to defend the tenure of incumbents at the state-level,for the Congress this is a fight for incumbency in New Delhi.

Despite appearances,the two states have adopted very different approaches to welfare policies. In Chhattisgarh,a narrow ruling elite attempts to maintain power on the basis of substantial welfare programmes undertaken by the state government. These welfare policies include the chief minister’s flagship subsidised rice programme — the Mukhya Mantri Khadyanna Sahayata Yojna — and have been driven through on Singh’s personal authority. Some of these welfare measures are more substantial than the derisory taglines of pre-election “giveaways” imply. Chhattisgarh’s reforms to the delivery of subsidised food via the public distribution system (PDS) have depended on intricate inter-agency coordination and the creative employment of technology-enabled reforms to ensure that foodgrains reached their intended beneficiaries. This has been accompanied by a move towards a quasi-universal PDS in which there is a reduced role for political interference in determining access to and quality of service delivery. Raman Singh has taken a personal interest in ensuring that bureaucrats have been given the space needed to oversee such creative reforms. These state-delivered programmes supplement the “social work” conducted by non-state actors within the Sangh Parivar,especially the Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram,through which the BJP began to make inroads and spread Hindu nationalist ideas in Adivasi regions of the state from the early 1990s.

A total of 80 per cent of voters (and 93 per cent of BPL cardholders) surveyed in the CSDS/ CNN-IBN pre-poll survey in Chhattisgarh last month said they received 35kg of foodgrains per month. These reforms and the successful delivery of subsidised food amount to a significant income transfer to the rural poor in Chhattisgarh (as Jean Dreze and Reetika Khera have demonstrated). This is important in a state in which rural poverty remained stubbornly high in the 2000s. At over 55 per cent in 2009-10,rural poverty in Chhattisgarh was more than 20 per cent higher than the all-India average. This was a period in which other states — including neighbouring MP — saw substantial declines in poverty (according to the Tendulkar committee estimates). However,the most recent Planning Commission estimates for 2011-12 suggest poverty has since fallen in Chhattisgarh too. Local politicians in Chhattisgarh are seeking to gain credit from such social sector schemes in their election campaigns.

Yet,whether these strategies for reducing poverty amount to political empowerment rather than political incorporation of the rural poor remains to be seen. Raman Singh has attempted to use such welfare policies to deflect attention from other framings of socio-economic inequities and from contentious areas of the government’s record,including conflicts around land acquisition for mining concerns and industrial interests,environmental damage and pollution,and the ongoing conflict with Maoists in the southern districts.

Across the border in MP,Chouhan also seeks re-election on the basis of his record on governance and development. In the CSDS/ CNN-IBN pre-poll survey in MP,improvements in roads and power supply were highlighted by voters as some of the achievements of the incumbent government. In office since 2005,the chief minister has played on his family’s agricultural origins to reach out to farmers — and to build the BJP’s appeal among OBCs in a state where upper-caste political dominance has been historically entrenched. He has placed considerable emphasis on boosting food production,offering incentives to farmers,such as interest-free loans,investment in irrigation and raising minimum support prices for wheat. MP was projected to become second only to Punjab in the procurement of wheat in 2012-13. Overall,the state has seen accelerated economic growth since the mid-2000s of over 8 per cent per annum since 2005-06 — driven more by the service sector and to some extent agricultural growth,in contrast to Chhattisgarh’s extractive industry-led growth.

On the welfare front,Chouhan has also introduced some new programmes,such as the Atal Bal Arogya Mission,to tackle childhood malnutrition,as well as schemes like bicycles for girls attending secondary school and grants for female children (Ladli Laxmi Yojna). He has also introduced a subsidised food programme (the Mukhyamantri Annapurna Yojana),and the state has attempted to introduce reforms to the PDS too,but these have been considerably more halting than neighbouring Chhattisgarh’s. The reforms stick to a model of a targeted PDS,which leaves scope for greater exclusion errors and corruption.

The main focus of the reforms has been on seeking to weed out “fake” ration cards through a move towards biometric ration cards connected to the Aadhar scheme. The implementation of these reforms has not been a priority for the political leadership in a way comparable to Chhattisgarh. The result is that the process of reforming the PDS in the state is considerably more confused,there is

weak inter-agency coordination and the reforms appear to have been less effective on the ground in reaching the poor.

Despite shared histories,and both having BJP governments,Chhattisgarh and MP have developed divergent paths since becoming separate states. They have chief ministers who have sought to cultivate different bases of social support,who have contrasting styles of administration and different thrusts for social and economic policy. The outcome of the keenly contested assembly elections will be informed by these localised trends,arguably more than being part of a national trend.

The writer is lecturer in politics,King’s India Institute,King’s College,London. This article draws partly on research conducted with Anupama Saxena and Yatindra Singh Sisodia as part of a British Academy International Partnership between King’s India Institute and Lokniti (CSDS) on comparative state politics and public policy.