Bhupesh Baghel is India's best performing Chief Minister: Governance Index

Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel is the best performing Chief Minister in the country, facing the least anger of the electorate, as per the IANS-CVoter Governance Index.

Only six per cent of the respondents are angry with Baghel and want a change. Conversely, Baghel enjoys highest popularity ratings among all Chief Ministers, as per the tracker.

In case of Chhattisgarh, anger is directed against the Central government and even state MLAs, but there is hardly any anger towards Baghel.

As many as 44.7 per cent respondents in Chhattisgarh are angry with the Central government, while 36.6 per cent are angry with the state government.

Baghel has introduced a slew of welfare schemes in Chhattisgarh, including providing free education to children studying in private schools, who have lost parents/guardians to Covid-19. Under the Mahtari Dular Yojana, the Chhattisgarh government would bear the expenses of education of such children.

Chhattisgarh was the top-performing state in India on the gender equality parameter of the Sustainable Development Goals, according to the NITI Aayog's SDG India Index report 2020-21.

The index tracks the progress of all states and Union Territories on 115 indicators.

Last year, Chhattisgarh scored 43 points on the gender quality parameter and was ranked seventh in India. This year, it scored 61 and topped the chart.

Yashwant Deshmukh, Founder, CVoter, said, "The CEO working style of CMs is popular. People are liking CMs with centralised decision making."

"These are leaders who are not afraid of taking the blame. It is risky when things go wrong as in the case of former Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh. But there is a better rating for the CEO style. We are living in a Parliamentary democracy, but a Presidential system is becoming popular with the public," Deshmukh said.

The CVoter Tracker is India's only daily opinion tracking exercise mapping more than a hundred thousand randomly selected respondents in a calendar year. The tracker run in 11 Indian languages has interviewed more than a million respondents in person and CATI over the last 10 years.

The quarterly report cards on CMs cover more than 30,000 across all the 543 Lok Sabha seats and has margin of error of +/-3 per cent at the national level and +/-5 per cent at the state level.

Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami ranks second in minimum anger of the electorate with 10.1 per cent, but since he is a new CM, he is getting the benefit of doubt even as a massive 61 per cent are angry with the state government. The earlier Chief Minister was drawing negative ratings, but now that has diffused though the anger against the state government remains high.

Odisha CM Naveen Patnaik ranks third with 10.4 per cent anger against him, and 37.6 per cent against the state government.

Also, the changing of CMs in some states has worked. With Punjab and Karnataka getting new CMs, the states have moved to respectable positions as they were languishing near the bottom earlier.

The maximum anger has been garnered by Telangana CM Chandrashekar Rao or KCR. As many as 30.3 per cent respondents are angry with him and want a change. With a high degree of anger against the incumbent and the Central government having good ratings in the state, the BJP is set to make inroads there, said Deshmukh.

He added that it is high time KCR's son, K.T. Rama Rao, replaces him or else things could go out of hand.

Also in the bottom are the northeastern states collectively with an anger quotent of 29.2 per cent.

There is 28.1 per cent anger against UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, but that is accounted for by the fact that Uttar Pradesh is a polarised state.

"Yogi being a polarising figure, the number is not surprising," said Deshmukh.

He added that the arithmetic of 40 per cent support base ensures that BJP is in a strong position in Uttar Pradesh.

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