India’s Modi faces bellwether poll in poorest state

PATNA: Voting has started in Bihar, India’s poorest state, and for many of its 130 million people, one issue overshadows all others: money.

That’s what Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) hopes to capitalise on, wooing voters with economic incentives in a bid to win full control.

A win here, strategists say, could “energise” the BJP’s prospects in other key states heading into next year’s elections.

Hindu-majority Bihar, the country’s third most populous state — roughly equal to Mexico — is a bellwether battleground.

It remains the only state in the Hindi-speaking north where Modi’s Hindu nationalist party has never ruled alone.

For housewife Rajkumari Devi, feeding her three children depends on the daily wage her husband earns as a labourer in the Muzaffarpur district.

He takes home about 400 to 500 Indian rupees (around $5) on the days he does find work.

“There is no stability,” said the 28-year-old, outside her modest one-room home overlooking agricultural land.

“There have been times when he has not had work for days — so we stretch the little money we have,” she added. “There is unemployment everywhere.”

Bihar ranks worst in India on poverty indicators, according to the government’s NITI Aayog policy think tank, with a GDP per capita of INR52,379, just ahead of a country like the Central African Republic.