26 July 2021

B S Yadiyurappa - The Economic Reformer

The 1991 economic reforms were a revolution in India's history. They freed our economy by removing government-controls on production and trade. But government-controls remained on the three inputs/factors of production  land, labour and capital. So our economy became only 50% free. Making our economy 100% free and unleashing its full potential requires removing these government-controls also  ie, carrying out factor-market reforms. Economists call this as Second Generation Reforms  and have been demanding it since 1991.

In 2015, Prime Minister Narendra Modi tried to carry out land-reforms  ie, removing government-controls on selling and buying land. Congress Party (which wants the pre-1991 govt-controlled socialism) said the land-reforms were 'pro-rich' and 'anti-poor'. Rahul Gandhi famously said: "Aapki sarkar suit-boot ki sarkar hai". The Modi-government was afraid of being seen as pro-rich/anti-poor  so it dropped the land-reforms and said it would leave it to the states. And how many state-governments (including BJP state-governments) carried out the land-reforms? Answer: Zero.

In 2019, BJP came to power in Karnataka and B S Yadiyurappa became Chief Minister. In January 2020, he attended the World Economic Forum at Davos and then announced that he would carry out the land-reforms in Karnataka. In September, he pushed the Land Reforms Bill through both the Houses of the Karnataka Legislature and carried out the land-reforms. Now (10 months later) the first benefits of the land-reforms are already visible: land prices, land sales and government revenue have all increased.

Today B S Yadiyurappa resigned as Chief Minister of Karnataka and brought an end to his long political career. He will go down in history not just as the man who brought BJP to power in South India but also as the greatest economic reformer among India's Chief Ministers.

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