Nitin Gadkari, Bharatiya Janata Party leader and Union Road Transport and Highways Minister, claimed that BJP-governed Madhya Pradesh was now being counted among India’s developed states while addressing a gathering in Jabalpur earlier this November.

“Once upon a time Madhya Pradesh was included in the BIMARU states of the country, but today it is carving its identity as a developed state,” the BJP’s Madhya Pradesh unit quoted him as saying in Hindi. BIMARU refers to Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh.

Earlier in November, Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, citing the state’s economic growth rate of 19.76%, had reportedly said that in the past, Madhya Pradesh was considered BIMARU but since then it has progressed rapidly. While the growth rate mentioned by Chouhan is technically correct, it does not provide the true picture of economic growth in the state, FactChecker found.

Madhya Pradesh’s Gross State Domestic Product, or GSDP, was Rs 976,281 crore in 2020-’21 and Rs 1,169,004 crore in 2021-’22, as per the Central Statistics Office, Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation. This amounts to a growth rate of 19.74%. These GSDP figures, however, are at current prices, which do not factor in the effects of inflation, according to the World Bank.

Madhya Pradesh’s GSDP at constant prices, which…

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