Virtually every chief minister is appraised on political appeal. I attempted to reframe them as investment portfolio managers and measured their tenures on the basis of the fund’s (state’s) GSDP performance based on a restricted data set between 2011-12 and 2024-25.
Yogi Adityanath, Uttar Pradesh: The Prashant Jain among CMs, Yogi Adityanath emerged as the largest GSDP wealth creator by quantum. He probably does not know businesses and industries from the inside; he probably knows what they need to run effectively. This is the indicative wealth created during his tenure until 2024-25: ~$154 billion. In eight years, Uttar Pradesh expanded from approximately $198 billion in 2016-17 to around $352 billion in 2024-25. Yogi added nearly $20 billion a year in GSDP value. I would likely to study his portfolio management methods (will he give me time?).
High-Performers
MK Stalin, Tamil Nadu: If industrial growth quality and post-pandemic acceleration are taken into account, MK Stalin’s mutual fund (Tamil Nadu) would be a case study. He didn’t get too much a tenure (four years were considered for this study until 2024-25) but consider his output — ~$128 billion in estimated wealth creation. Tamil Nadu’s GSDP expanded from $241 billion in 2020-21 (pre-Stalin) to around $369 billion in 2024-25. Stalin delivered nearly $32 billion in average GSDP growth a year — an outperformer. He delivered more in one year than some CMs delivered in five years.
K Chandrashekar Rao, Telangana: If structural transformation and state-building are prioritised, K Chandrashekar Rao’s Telangana achieved a striking economic transformation. He got a straight 10 years as CM; he helped create ~$101 billion of GSDP wealth. That might sound relatively slow — an average of around $10 billion per annum — but consider what he inherited following the break from Andhra Pradesh: a state economy of $75 billion (equivalent to Kerala then), which he more than doubled to $194 billion — a 159% growth in portfolio. Kerala was a $147-billion economy in 2024-25 while Telangana had grown to $194 billion. Salute.
Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Madhya Pradesh: Under Shivraj Singh Chouhan, the state became one of India’s strong long-term compounders. Madhya Pradesh under him created an estimated $96 billion in GSDP wealth as the state economy expanded from around $66 billion in 2011-12 to $162 billion in 2023-24 (though his tenure commenced earlier, I have used 2011-12 as the starting point of this study). During the 10-year coverage of his tenure in office after 2011-12, he delivered an average of nearly $10 billion per year — around the same as Rao — no theatrics, just steady portfolio compounding.
Siddaramaiah, Karnataka: If Karnataka were an independent country, its economy of nearly $341 billion would be around the size of Denmark or Hong Kong. Some of this credit goes to Siddaramaiah, who was CM in two phases — from 2013 to 2018 and then for two years until 2024-25 (when this study coverage terminated). Karnataka created an estimated $136 billion in GSDP wealth during his seven-year tenure covered under this study — nearly $20 billion a year, almost equalling the great Yogi (who achieved his run rate in eight years). A disclaimer — analysts argue that the big Karnataka driver Bangalore was driven by IT services that ran on a momentum of its own.
Maharashtra’s CMs: The three Maharashtra CMs of the last decade and a half delivered high quantums (through that may be ascribed to the high base of the Maharashtra economy). During his five-year tenure ending 2018-19, Devendra Fadnavis grew the Maharashtra economy by $89 billion — from $274 billion to $362 billion — averaging $18 billion a year; Uddhav Thackeray grew it by $60 billion from $362 billion to $422 billion in three years ending 2021-22, averaging $20 billion; Eknath Shinde grew it $65 billion from $422 billion to $487 billion in two years ending 2023-24, averaging — this is the surprise—$32.5 billion, marginally higher than even Stalin’s run rate. I would have assumed that the progressively rising averages of the first two CMs was predictable; each building on the base of the other. But how do you account for Eknath Shinde’s outperformance, as he simply climbed “into another box”?
Decoding the Data
In the study, all growth was treated numerically; there is a difference between consumption-led growth, government-spending-led growth, export-led industrialisation, tech-services growth, and manufacturing growth.
Tamil Nadu and Karnataka deserve mention for industrial depth, export sophistication, and formal sector strength. Uttar Pradesh deserves mention for infrastructure scaling, logistics, and public capex. Telangana deserves mention for urbanisation and IT services.
Eknath Shinde and MK Stalin emerged as the strongest annual wealth creators, though across relatively brief tenures.
Yogi Adityanath delivered the largest sustained scale expansion, helping turn the image of Uttar Pradesh around.
K Chandrashekar Rao presided over one of India’s most striking structural economic transformations driven by technology, infrastructure, and urbanisation.
The author is Chief Positioning Officer and Director, Trisys Communications
Disclaimer: This analysis used nominal dollar-denominated GSDP and therefore captured both real expansion and inflationary effects. State GSDP growth is influenced not only by the actions of chief ministers but also by inherited momentum, national economic growth, inflation, currency movements, central transfers, global demand conditions, and private sector investment cycles. Nevertheless, policy stability, infrastructure creation, governance quality, industrial facilitation, and administrative execution can materially influence economic outcomes. The numbers that have been used were derived from various sources. They are indicative and may not be necessarily precise right down to the last basis point. The tenures were across different periods and economic realities, so you may say apple years were compared with orange years. All numbers were derived from Statistics Times.