From Uttar Pradesh to Uttam Pradesh!

Uttar Pradesh (UP)  by giving a  never seen thumbing majority to BJP has subscribed itself in the history books with golden words. A state which has been well known for it’s cast and creed based voting trends has re established its identity as a state open to development agenda without looking for the name or surname of the leader. India’s largest state has been hotbed of the Indian political system and has given many Prime Minister  to the nation. Even after being so much vocal on the political stage there has been something about this northern state which has always kept it entangled  and orthodox from the development agenda. From the last 15 years UP has been ruled by SP and BSP in turns and have been an experiment ground for the regional party politics. In the same period nation and other states has seen an unprecedented movement on the economic and social development front , has increased per capita income by a substantial margin , reduced number of poors, invested heavily on infrastructure and come up with lot of policies to increase share of industrial and service sector in economic activities. Many of them succeeded in this mission with MP being a very good example which was once labelled as Bimaru state but is now clocking a handsome GDP growth rate consistently in a row. But as far as UP is concerned , it is far from where it should have been. Despite being most populous state of the India , its contribution to overall national GDP is no where proportional to it’s size , state infrastructure is in a  mess and need major investment and reforms ,law and order is an another problem which need to be reined in to ensure social harmony which is prerequisite for economic development.

Why now is the best time ?

There are multiple factors which make this result significant from state development perspective. First and foremost being Prime Minister Mr. Modi himself. He is sitting MP from the state and BJP has fought this whole election on his face , he himself has put on his entire image on stake unlike Bihar election where he started with a good pitch but slowed down along with time. So delivering on development agenda will be something very important for him personally and he has to ensure that state’s political and administrative machinery run as a fine tuned machinary.  In addition to this , it is the first time after 1991 that there will be same party government ruling in both centre and state and a streamlined coordination will help to roll out government policy in a speedy way without any beaurucractic hurdles. Roll out of the GST starting 1st July of this year is also something which will help UP to increase it’s revenue base as it change the point of tax collection from producing state to consuming state. Since UP don’t have much industrial base so it’s revenue collection (as proportional to population) used to be less when compare to other industrial states like Tamil Nadu or Gujrat, but since it has very large population so after GST it’s revenue base will increase which might act as a feeder to give a new life line to it’s crawling infrastructure. And last but not the least the kind of mandate BJP has got will itself act as a pressure tactic to perform as per the people expectation especially when 2019 is just 2 year away.

UP and it’s people has broken all barrier and has accepted Mr. Modi’s development agenda with open arms and heart barring all the negative campaign and imaginary bandwagon created around the Congress SP alliance. In the long history of this nation probably this is the first time that in assembly election people across cast and creed has accepted a political party in the larger interest of the state, defying their individual identities. This is a whole new trend in Indian politics which can be considered as a good indication to political parties which alway bank on social engineering to manufacture the political mandate and always remain biased toward a particular section of the society. UP has set an example for other states to emulate  in the larger interest of state and the nation.

UP has done it’s bit and now it’s time for the Mr. Modi and team to respond in the reciprocate manner.

letters@openeditorial.in