In India Today's recently carried out an national opinion poll "Mood of the Nation" , Bihar's Chief Minister Mr. Nitish Kumar, was ranked as the 3rd most popular Chief Minister. He was ranked at the 3rd place only after Narendra Modi and Shiela Dixit.
72% of the voters in Bihar thought Nitish was the best Chief Minister and 54% voters from Jharkhand thought the same. This is a significant aspect as not people of Bihar and Jharkhand think that Nitish is a very good Chief Minister but the nation also thinks so. This poll was conducted by India Today along with AC Nielson-ORG-MARG and the article was published on the 10th of April 2009 in India Today. The last 3 years rankings of the Chief Minister's are as follows Where they stood, where they stand Chief Ministers 2009 2008 2007 Narendra Modi, Gujarat 1 1 1 Sheila Dikshit, Delhi 2 5 5 Nitish Kumar, Bihar 3 4 1 Mayawati, Uttar Pradesh 4 2 YSR Reddy, Andhra Pradesh 5 3 M. Karunanidhi, Tamil Nadu 6 6 Ashok Chavan, Maharashtra 7 New entry Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, West Bengal 8 8 V.S.Achuthanandan, Kerala 9 16 Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Madhya Pradesh 10 17 Naveen Patnaik, Orissa 11 11 Ashok Gehlot, Rajasthan 12 New entry Raman Singh, Chhattisgarh 13 10 Bhupinder Singh Hooda, Haryana 14 14 Parkash Singh Badal, Punjab 15 12 Tarun Kumar Gogoi, Assam 16 13 Digambar Kamat, Goa 17 New entry Maj.Gen (Retd) B.C.Khanduri 18 18 The article had some good things to say about Nitish Kumar. To quote from the article "Until a couple of years ago, most Indians looked at Bihar in the way that the world now sees Pakistan— a failed state, where nothing ever works and anything can go wrong. Governance was a sham, the law and order situation was in a shambles and the state Assembly did not even pass a budget for five years and instead opted for the vote on account. And then Nitish Kumar came along. He laid particular emphasis on the health and education sectors, ensured that the allocations for roads were fully utilised to connect the state and cracked the whip on law offenders, not even hesitating to send his own partymen to jail for violations. Kumar does not have a pan-Indian image like Modi but 72 per cent voters in Bihar and 54 per cent in Jharkhand thought he was the best chief minister, his support base cutting across the urban-rural divide and age groups. With 10 per cent of the national vote, just one percentage point behind Dikshit, he occupies third place." I would like to thank Mr. Indra Verma for highlighting this article and pointing out that Bihar is perhaps the only state in India where the issue is development. People can follow this article at Leaders and Laggards by Ashok K. Damodaran from India Today. -- Posted By Prashant to Bihar's - Change in Destiny and Progress at 4/15/2009 12:05:00 AM
