Poverty, Politics and the Socially Marginalised – a state level analysis in India

Activities of the Government are mostly influenced by the political party or combinations of political parties are in the Government. Variation in the nature of the political rule can lead to differential effectiveness in the pursuit of the anti-poverty programmes the variations in the political rule at the state level allow us to make a comparative analysis among the different political ideas or regime in the alleviation of poverty among the socially marginalized in rural India. In this paper an attempted has been made to access whether variations in the political regimes across the states do have a different impact on the poverty reduction among the different social groups viz SCs, STs and others and whether the rate of reduction over the time varies among the different social groups with varying political regimes. This analysis found that the political affiliation is a significant determinant of poverty and it has been found that the odds of poverty decline most in the Left-ruled states. Further, the performance of the left ruled states are impressive in terms of steady decline in odds among all the social groups and between all the social groups over the time compare to Right and Other ruled states.