'Murshidabad was once the richest...': Investor Ruchir Sharma on West Bengal's economic decline

Ace investor Ruchir Sharma said he was struck by the contrast between Murshidabad's past and present, describing the district as one of the most backward in West Bengal despite its historical prominence.

"In fact, it's even worse than being stuck in a time warp," Sharma said in an interview with NDTV after travelling across the state. "One of the more interesting places we went to this time was Murshidabad. Today, it is one of the most backward districts of Bengal, possibly of India."

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Sharma said the district's condition was particularly striking given its history. "What I was told was that back in the 1750s, this used to be about the richest place in the world. Murshidabad was supposed to be about close to 5% of global GDP," he said, adding that some writers had once described it as better than London.

"So that was the magnificence of Murshidabad then, and here we are more than three centuries later, where it is just like another mofussil town that we get to experience. So it was quite disheartening to see that."

Sharma said his broader assessment of West Bengal reflected similar patterns. "I'm really struck by how backward this state still is," he said, pointing to data showing that the state’s per capita income ranking has "remained unchanged for decades" and has "slipped over time."

He added that per capita income growth in the state has "continued to languish among the lowest in India for the last so many decades." "Nothing has changed. And we could really see the backwardness in places like Murshidabad and other things."

The conditions, he said, could contribute to anti-incumbency, which he sensed during his travels. But he described the electoral contest as difficult to predict. "It is very rare in India's electoral history for a 10 percentage point gap between two parties to be overcome within one election cycle," he said.  "The entire battle now is that the gap's going to close, but will the gap be close enough in one election for the entire thing to flip?" 

In the 2021 Assembly elections, the Trinamool Congress secured about 48% of the vote and 215 seats, while the Bharatiya Janata Party won 77 seats with roughly 38% vote share, leaving a gap of around 10 percentage points. The first phase of polling in West Bengal was held on April 23, with the second scheduled for April 29. Results are due on May 4.