Bihar expert Dr Shaibal Gupta tells Sheela Bhatt why the upcoming assembly election is a benchmark in the state.
The man who has studied Lalu Prasad Yadav and Nitish Kumar from a vantage position in Patna's corridors of power speaks to Sheela Bhatt about the upcoming Bihar assembly election.
'His image may have gone down a little because he is talking about poverty and underdeveloped states. That is not the way to sell yourself nationally,' Bihar's best known economist and social scientist Dr Shaibal Gupta tells Rediff.com's Archana Masih.
In Gujarat, the system is such that even if Narendra Modi is not there, the growth will continue. But in a place like Bihar it is different, it will still matter who is the CEO of the state,' says social scientist-economist Dr Shaibal Gupta.
Amid demands for special category status by Bihar, the Centre on Wednesday set up an expert committee to evolve a composite index to measure backwardness of states.
The Raghuram Rajan committee report for evolving a composite development index of states, submitted to the finance ministry today, has a note of dissent from member Shaibal Gupta.
The Padma Bhushan was conferred on 17 personalities including N Chandrasekharan, chairman of Tata Sons, Krishna and Suchita Ella of Bharat Biotech, Cyrus Poonawalla, Satya Nadella, chairman of Microsoft, Sunder Pichai, chairman of Google.
The Bihar CM may be in the Opposition but his endorsement of Ram Nath Kovind, the NDA's presidential candidate, is among the many recent decisions that puts him apart from the others.
Rampant crime challenges the chief minister's promise to maintain law and order. But some say there are other forces at play.
Association of caste with the way people have tended to vote in Bihar has somewhat weakened.
'The clearest interpretation of the November 8 mandate is that the backwards, Dalits and minorities, and a huge proportion of women cutting across caste and class, displayed massive consolidation to the extent that despite chipping of votes by the Left Front, by the Third Front and by the BSP, Mahagathbandhan candidates won, and in many cases by huge margins,' says Mohammad Sajjad.
'The BJP suddenly seems vulnerable. This is not entirely surprising. In the past too, governments and leaders who won a thumping Lok Sabha majority lost popularity in a matter of months... The by-polls results shows that a degree of disenchantment with the Modi government is setting in,' says Praful Bidwai.
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