{"id":1185,"date":"2012-11-12T14:05:53","date_gmt":"2012-11-12T08:35:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/teekhapan.wordpress.com\/?p=1185"},"modified":"2012-11-12T14:05:53","modified_gmt":"2012-11-12T08:35:53","slug":"cong-trying-to-do-a-romney-in-gujarat-by-attacking-modi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vivekkaul.com\/2012\/11\/12\/cong-trying-to-do-a-romney-in-gujarat-by-attacking-modi\/","title":{"rendered":"Cong trying to do a Romney in Gujarat by attacking Modi"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n\"\"<\/a>Vivek Kaul<\/strong>
\nThe Congress campaign in Gujarat is getting desperate. Sample this.
\n\u201cWhen it comes to GDP growth, Gujarat is lagging behind\u00a0states like Bihar, Odhisa and Chhattishgarh,\u201d the Union\u00a0Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma said while addressing a\u00a0public meeting in Gandhinagar. \u201cNarendra Modi says Gujarat is most progressive, but if\u00a0you have been to other states, Bihar, Odisha and Chattisgarh\u00a0are much ahead,\u201d he added.
\nWhen Indian politicians start using terms like Gross Domestic Product growth with voters you know that they don\u2019t have much else to talk about.
\nData from the planning commission shows that the state gross domestic product (GDP) at current prices (which does not adjust for inflation) of Bihar, Odisha and Chattisgarh grew at the rates of 20.4%, 16% and 15.3% in 2011-2012.
\nIn comparison Gujarat grew at 15.8%. So the economic growth (which is what the state GDP measures) of Bihar and Odisha was faster than that of Gujarat. But Gujarat grew faster than Chattisgarh.
\nBut as the old saying goes we should be comparing Apples with Apples and not Apples with Oranges. And to add to that as one of my teachers used to say \u201cpercentages should be used carefully lest we draw the wrong conclusions\u201d.
\nLet me deviate a little and give an example to explain what I am basically trying to say.\u00a0\u00a0Let us say you earn Rs 10,000 a month and your income jumps to Rs 20,000 a month, a gain of 100%. On the other hand let\u2019s say you earn Rs 1 lakh a month and your income jumps to Rs 1.3 lakh a month, or a gain of 30%.
\nSo even though the percentage gain in the first case is more, the absolute gain is more in the second case. Hence, when we are talking percentages it is important to keep the base number in mind. So Bihar did grow faster than Gujarat but it was because of what economists like to call the \u201cbase effect\u201d.
\nGujarat\u2019s state GDP in 2010-2011 was Rs 5,13,173 crore. It went up by 15.8% to Rs 5,94,369 crore in 2011-2012. In comparison Bihar\u2019s GDP for 2010-2011 was Rs 2,17,814 crore. And it grew by 20.4% to Rs 2,62,230 crore in 2011-2012.
\nThe point being Bihar is growing on a lower base and that\u2019s why the percentage growth is higher. The same argument holds for Odisha as well.
\nThe other point that comes here is the population of the state. Bihar\u2019s state GDP went up by Rs 44,416 crore to Rs 2,62,230 crore. This gain of Rs 44,416 crore was spread across a population of 10.38 crore people. This implies a gain of Rs 4,279 per individual who lived in Bihar.
\nNow let\u2019s do the same calculation for the state of Gujarat. The GDP of the state went up by Rs 81,196 crore to Rs 5,94,369 crore. This gain of Rs 81,196 crore was spread across a population of Gujarat is 6.04 crore as per the 2011 census. Hence, this implies a gain Rs 13,447 per individual who lives in Gujarat.
\nThis basically means that the growth in Gujarat at an individual level was three times that of Bihar in 2011-2012. Hence, Sharma\u2019s argument that Bihar grew faster than Gujarat doesn\u2019t really work.
\nAnd Sharma is not the only one attacking Modi.\u00a0Ajay Maken, the youngest minister in the Union Cabinet alleged at a rally that the ruling BJP government was neck-deep in\u00a0corruption in the name of development.\u00a0Well that\u2019s like the pot calling the kettle black. As has been proven time and over the last few years, India hasn\u2019t seen a more corrupt government than the current UPA government ruling the country.
\nMani Shankar Aiyer, a former minister in the UPA government, called Modi Ravana and\u00a0asatya ka saudagar.\u00a0<\/i>He also called him a\u00a0paani purush.\u00a0<\/i>Congress Rajya Sabha MP Hussain Dalwai, said “Modi is just a mouse before Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel”.
\nBharat Solanki, Union Minister for Drinking Water and Sanitation, decided to beat all the abuses being hurled at Modi and termed him as\u00a0\u201cNathuram Godse\u201d and alleged that \u201cunder the\u00a0BJP rule in Gandhi\u2019s Gujarat not truth but lies carry more\u00a0currency\u201d.
\nElections campaigns can get nasty. But the Congress doesn\u2019t seem to have learned from its 2007 blunder when Sonia Gandhi called Modi a\u00a0\u201cmaut ka saudagar\u201d.\u00a0<\/i>While it might have sounded like a brilliant turn of phrase to the Congress speechwriter who wrote Sonia\u2019s speech, it clearly backfired on the party.
\nThe issue here is what does the Congress attack Narendra Modi with? Economic development as I showed above is healthy in Gujarat. It is one of the few states in the country which has a power surplus. The roads are \u2018just\u2019 fine and the cities are largely clean. Modi doesn\u2019t really have any big corruption charges against him unlike the Congress government as well as the party.
\nSo what do you do in a situation like this? You get personal and attack on Modi\u2019s big blip, the 2002 riots in the state, and hope that it creates enough fear in the minds of the voter and he decides to vote for the Congress.
\nBut does the issue really matter to the major portion of the voters in Gujarat? The answer is no. As Aakar Patel, a known Modi baiter, recently wrote in the\u00a0Open<\/a>\u00a0<\/i>magazine \u201cGujaratis like to think they are great national\u00adists.\u00a0It doesn\u2019t occur to them that India suffers\u00a0every time they triumphantly keep memories of the massacre alive, by backing the man first unwilling or unable to stop it, now too incom\u00adpetent to prosecute its participants. They are voting Caesar(i.e. Modi) back to power.\u201d
\nHence, Congress\u2019 negative campaign isn\u2019t really going to work. In fact, it might work in\u00a0\u00a0favour of Modi, who will continue to espouse the cause of\u00a0Gujarati Asmita\u00a0<\/i>and portray himself as a lone gladiator taking on the Congress baddies.
\nAlso negative campaigns do not really work. Take the case of the recent Presidential elections in the United States. Romney\u2019s attacks on Obama got too personal towards the end of the campaign. Donald Trump, a Romney supporter, wanted to see the college records of Obama. The insinuation here was that Obama may got into college in America as a foreign exchange student from\u00a0Indonesia<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0Trump also wanted access to Obama\u2019s passport. The insinuation here was that would allow him (i.e Trump) to prove something Muslim about Obama.
\nAs marketing guru Al Ries told me in a\u00a0recent interview<\/a>\u00a0on Firstpost \u201cMitt Romney spent most of his time attacking Barack Obama. That’s the wrong strategy. What a politician needs to do is to offer a positive concept first and then point out that his or her opponent lacks this concept.\u201d
\nSome of the biggest state elections in India have seen winning parties run extremely positive campaigns. Akhilesh Yadav ran the\u00a0umeed ki cycle<\/i>\u00a0campaign in Uttar Pradesh and Mamata Banerjee ran the\u00a0poriborton\u00a0<\/i>campaign in West Bengal.\u00a0\u00a0While they are busy making a mess of the states after coming to power, but then that is a different issue all together.
\nIn comparison. the Congress party doesn\u2019t really have any strategy in place when it comes to taking on Narendra Modi. And what it is doing clearly won\u2019t work.
\nThe article<\/a> originally appeared on www.firstpost.com on November 12, 2012.
\n(Vivek Kaul is a writer.\u00a0\u00a0He can be reached at\u00a0vivek.kaul@gmail.com<\/a>)
\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Vivek Kaul The Congress campaign in Gujarat is getting desperate. Sample this. \u201cWhen it comes to GDP growth, Gujarat is lagging behind\u00a0states like Bihar, Odhisa and Chhattishgarh,\u201d the Union\u00a0Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma said while addressing a\u00a0public meeting in Gandhinagar. \u201cNarendra Modi says Gujarat is most progressive, but if\u00a0you have been to other states, … <\/p>\n

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