Shikha Mukerjee | Diversity Works Just Fine In All 4 Poll-going States

This is election season. Kerala, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Assam and one Union territory (Puducherry) are in poll mode. Four political parties/coalitions are competing to retain power. That is proof that one nation and multiple ruling parties work in a democracy that is large, diverse and evolving.Contrary to the idea that “one nation-one party” is the ideal model to speed India into “Viksit Bharat” by 2047 under the stewardship of Narendra Modi and his BJP, these states’ development story signals that diversity is even better. In Tamil Nadu, the DMK led by M.K. Stalin is contesting a mixed and confused bag of competitors to retain power; in Kerala, run by the CPI(M)-led Left Democratic Alliance under two-term CM Pinarayi Vijayan, it’s up against the Congress-led United Democratic Front in the edgiest contest in this season. In West Bengal, Mamata Banerjee and her Trinamul Congress are battling to retain power for the fourth time against the BJP. In Assam, Himanta Biswa Sarma hopes to retain power for the BJP for the second term. In two states, Kerala and Tamil Nadu, the BJP is not the principal challenger; the Congress is the lead party of the alliance against the reigning LDF and is part of the DMK alliance. In Assam, the Congress in coalition with regional parties is the principal challenger to the ruling BJP. In West Bengal, the Congress and CPI(M) are struggling to reinvent themselves, while the BJP hopes to move up from the official opposition to ruling party. That is, the BJP is three of the four states, is a challenger and not the dominant party. States run by parties opposed to the BJP have done well, challenging the “double-engine sarkar” vision as the speediest route to development. DMK-run Tamil Nadu is ranked number three among India’s richest states; its per capita income in 2024-2025 in nominal terms was Rs 3.62 lakhs, that is 1.77 times higher than the national average. Its growth rate is faster than the national rate. Kerala, now ranked seventh among the richest states, declared itself free of extreme poverty, the first state to do so. Per capita income in 2024-25, as per RBI data, was Rs 3.08 lakhs, and its growth rate is eye-popping near 10 per cent, substantially higher than the national rate. The growth and wealth created in these two states, that means poverty is in decline, along with a population also in decline as its standards of living have improved, confirming the truth that economic theorists uncovered about the link between education, income and population, contradicts the idea that a “double-engine sarkar” model is the only alternative. Accused of corruption and bad governance, with ED show-cause notices on chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan, former finance minister Thomas Isaac and others, political leaders across Kerala have complained of ED action during the 2020 local body elections, the 2021 Assembly polls and the 2024 Lok Sabha elections: “It is a political game.” Raids by ED in Tamil Nadu against the State Marketing Corporation TASMAC provoked retired Chief Justice of India B.R. Gavai to remark: “How can a corporation commit an offence? The ED is crossing all limits.” The 2026 Assembly elections are a contest between perceptions and realities. Kerala, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal have all complained about the timing and intentions of ED and other agencies in carrying out raids, arrests, interrogations and investigations. On the one hand, there is a narrative that states ruled by regional, often dynastic parties, are corrupt, where money meant for the people are siphoned into bank accounts of political leaders, affecting development and wealth creation and income redistribution; and on the other, there are facts pointing to the growth and wealth in the economies of these states. The near obsessive attention that West Bengal and its politics gets has also framed how it has fared in development terms under the 15-year Mamata Banerjee government and the 34 uninterrupted years under the Left Front, led by Jyoti Basu for the first 23 years and then Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee for 11 more years. The narrative, outlined by the Congress and elaborated by the BJP, is West Bengal’s decline is due to bad policies under bad leadership. Its decline since the 1960s as one of three top industrialised and rich states has added substance to the story. It is usually help up as an example of what can go wrong in a state that was once rich, but is now poor; which is a fact. The packaging, however, covers up the details of why, West Bengal, despite being in decline, is still ranked sixth, in terms of contribution to the Gross National Product, which is not great compared to its glorious past, but not bad, given the steady decline in investments and industrialisation that it has experienced. Its per capita income is lower than the national average. Oddly, West Bengal’s growth in terms of GST is above the national average and ranks eighth in GST collections.Assam, the only state representing the magical transformation that is to be expected of a “double-engine sarkar”, is not among the top ten in GST collections. Its per capita income, despite its vertiginous Gross State Domestic Product achievements exceeding the national average in the past ten years, is low, putting in the same bracket as West Bengal, which is 21 in the rankings. Reports quoting the RBI indicate Assam is the fastest growing state economy in the country, with 45 per cent growth in the last five years. This is a miraculous transformation that chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma and indeed the Prime Minister have attributed to good governance and the “double-engine sarkar” formula. The bottom line is that political diversity works just as well as a model of uniformity, with each state succeeding in doing its own thing. If the DMK wins in Tamil Nadu, the LDF or even the UDF comes to power in Kerala, if Mamata Banerjee wins in West Bengal and Mr Sarma wins a second term in Assam, the “Viksit Bharat” target will not be materially affected. The much-lauded “double-engine sarkar” model has speeded things up in Assam, but that change has not as yet reached the people, as the per capita income levels reveal. West Bengal can be expected to stay on track in terms of GST collections, indicating that the economy in terms of goods and services is healthy; and people, despite lower incomes than Kerala and Tamil Nadu, have money to spend. Diversity works fine and keeping it going is democratically desirable. Shikha Mukerjee is a senior journalist in Kolkata



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