The Difference between BJP and the Congress party

Yesterday I had an epiphany of sorts. In a wonderful discussion with my friend MS, a startling realisation dawned on me suddenly. I will share that below. Before that, there is nothing more valuable than two people with diammetrically opposite views having a civilised debate. There is so much pressure to counter that person and that too without trolling that person (Unlike on Twitter). That is when I think your mind opens up and you discover many new things. I and MS go long back, 1991 to be precise. He was a bright, no nonsense fellow at college. I still remember one of the days we went WT on Indian railways (sometime in 1993). The cops at first and then the TT caught us. I was wondering about the fine while MS looked on unfazed and unbothered by the whole drama, that is a face and character I shall never forget in my lifetime.

When you ask middle class educated folks Today as to what is the difference between the Congress and the BJP, you get to hear a stereotypical answer that all of us are now familiar with

BJP=Hindutva, Development, Modi

INC=PseudoSecular, Corrupt, Dynasty/Rahul

This is demonstrated in the voting data for 2014 when BJP won nearly 40% of the vote while Congress won only 20% of the vote in the urban areas.

As a political consultant, I look at this dispassionately and I have no intentions to prove or disprove these beliefs (atleast in this article). But let me go back to a series of may articles to demonstrate an important point I learnt from MS.

One of the biggest reasons that we elect Governments is because we expect the Government to Govern effectively. So on Governance front, is there any evidence that the BJP is better than the Congress? Here is a quick comparison with sources provided as links

Per Capita Income rankings (Current, 2010 to 2015) - Congress is better

Agriculture- BJP is better

Education Metrics - Congress is Better

Electricity, LPG, Women Financial Inclusion- Congress is better

Time taken to sort legal cases - Congress is better

Inflation - BJP is better

Here are some recent charts I had not published in articles

Quality of Life in Cities - Congress is better

On Job creation, we have the latest data from various States (Employment exchange statistics only) - Difficult to say as Congress was in power only in one big State and that is No. 1

On Roads(Density of State Highways) -2012 data, BJP is better

Long term BJP ruled States: Density average- 0.069

Long term INC ruled States - Density average- 0.06

As we look at the series of metrics above, the common trend appears to be that the Congress party is outperforming the BJP on most metrics if not all. The BJP has a clear edge on Inflation, Agriculture, marginally ahead on Roads density and probably a tie on Employment.On the most important metric of per capita income movement, BJP clearly underperforms.

Given these pieces of Statistics, why is that the Indian voter still perceives BJP to be better for 'development'?

That is where my debate with MS comes in handy. Given that we were from Odisha which is one of the poorest States in the country, I was making the case that we can't complete hold the Government for failure as almost all of us had moved up the ladder through Government support (Government Schools, Government Engineering College, Government Funded/Supported PG Institution and so on). That is when MS stopped me. He said

I am successful because of my own effort, hardwork and talent

This in my view is the crux of the issue. When we look at things that Government appears to be responsible for from a citizen's perspective, they include - Inflation, Corruption, Building Roads, Providing electricity and may be a couple of other aspects. On these factors, there is a lot of evidence as of now atleast (except electricity perhaps) from a citizen's perspective that the BJP is better than the Congress party. However, there is a serious problem with this narrative. When we looked at State income growth over the last 10 years (more academic research needed), we found evidence that education played a crucial role in differentiating the States that moved up the ranks versus those that did not move up the ranks. This is what explains why the Southern States have been displacing both Gujarat and now Maharashtra on per capita income ranks. However, when it comes to this crucial metric, as my friend MS says, I am responsible for this, not the State. The counter to this is that numerous studies have confirmed the simple fact that primary and secondary education cannot be left completely in the hands of the private sector, the drop out rates tend to increase and it ends up seriously depleting the quality of manpower and therefore the incomes and income growth.

Our expenditure analysis on the ground also confirms the trend (a more detailed piece later) but almost all BJP States invest much more on urban development and Infrastructure than Congress ruled States. INC ruled States spend much more on agriculture, education, healthcare and encourage private participation in education. Even at the Centre, there are hardly any serious initiatives on education, healthcare and similar aspects. But then the Centre can hopefully rely much more on the States to focus on education. The only catch is with the States also now mostly in the hands of the BJP, one wonders if we could end up duplicating results instead of strengthening the quality of our human resources. Long before China opened up its economy, it had reached almost universal literacy, reasonably high healthcare and 70% of their women participated in the worforce (it is 25% in India now). These lessons should not be forgotten.

Both parties must learn from each other atleast on understanding what levers foster growth and sustainability and not overdo one over the other. I have been saying again, Niti Aayog must build the Statistical infrastructure to recommend the most efficient resource allocation for a State (on the basis of their current infasrtructure, make up of their human resources and dependency on sectors). This will go a long way in building an India that we all dream of.