Reality: The pet slogan of the prime minister and the government, in fact it is the one that powered the BJP to power 4 years ago. But has it really happened?

A World Economic Forum report this year put India at the 62nd place in terms of inclusive development, below Pakistan and China. A year earlier, India ranked 60th among 79 developing economies.

India also slipped to the 100th position from 97th in the Global Hunger Index this year, below even North Korea and Bangladesh.

Contrast this with an Oxfam report saying the richest 1 per cent in Indiaown 73 per cent of the wealth, a substantial increase from last year’s situation where the richest 1 per cent held 58 per cent of the country’s total wealth.

Rubbing salt into the wound was a US Commission for International Religious Freedom report last month that said religious freedom conditions continued a ‘downward trend’ in India last year as Hindu nationalist groups sought to ‘saffronise’ it through violence, intimidation, and harassment of non-Hindus and Hindu Dalits.

Reality: An IndiaSpend report published last year showed that school dropout rates of students in BJP-ruled states like UP, MP, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand increased between the years 2014 and 2016.

The report said that girls in the age group 11-16 in MP, UP and Rajasthan are more likely to drop out of school.

In MP, 28% of girls in the age group 15-16 were dropouts, compared to 19.4% of boys.

In Gujarat, 22.5% of girls were dropouts compared to 16.3% of boys.

Incidentally, an Association for Democratic Reforms report last year stated that among various recognised parties, the BJP has the highest number of MPs and MLAs who have declared cases relating to crimes against women.

Reality: A village is declared electrified if 10% of its households have power connections.

The government's own household electrification data shows there are more than 30 million households that are yet to be electrified.

The number is the highest in Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh, where 52% and 44% households, respectively, have no power.

Reality: The BJP had in 2014 promised to implement the recommendations of Swaminathan Commission whose report states that farmers should get an MSP which is 50% higher than the comprehensive cost of production, termed as C2.

However, what the farmers are getting is 50% more than A2+FL, ie, actual paid out cost plus imputed value of family labour.

For most crops, C2 is substantially higher than A2+FL.

Moreover, farmers were already getting 1.5 times A2+FL for many crops even before 2014.

What they have been asking is an MSP that is 1.5 times C2.

Reality:In Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index, India scored 40 on a scale of 0-100. Though its score remained the same as last year, India fell two places in the rankings to 81.

Another study by TI last year found the bribery rate in India to be the highest among 16 Asian countries.

The year 2018 began with the news of massive fraud at Punjab National Bank, perpetrated by diamond czar Nirav Modi, which allegedly went on even after alerts being raised by vigilant employees.

In his book A Feast of Vultures, veteran journalist Josy Joseph states that the biggest case that has come up before the SIT set up to investigate black money is that of the Adani group, promoted by Prime Minister Modi’s close associate Gautam Adani.

He also points out how no action has been taken in the case and ED officials pursuing the case were harassed or shunted out.