A figure as large as 25 crore people lifting themselves out of poverty is not a statistic — it is a civilisational shift. Speaking from Himachal Pradesh on Saturday, 26 September 2026, BJP MP Anurag Thakur invoked that number to make the case that the BJP's Antyodaya and welfare-first policies are directly responsible for one of the largest poverty-reduction episodes in modern Indian history.

Thakur posted in Hindi: 'भाजपा की अंत्योदय व जनकल्याणकारी नीतियों के चलते ही 25 करोड़ ग़रीब, गरीबी रेखा से बाहर आए ये हमारी सरकार की उपलब्धि है' — ('It is because of BJP's Antyodaya and welfare policies that 25 crore poor people have come out from below the poverty line — this is the achievement of our government.')

The Antyodaya thread running through BJP's welfare architecture

The Antyodaya philosophy — literally, 'the rise of the last person' — has been a load-bearing pillar of BJP governance for over two decades. It found its first programmatic expression in the Antyodaya Anna Yojana, launched in 2000, which guaranteed subsidised foodgrains to the poorest families. Since 2014, the central government has layered on scheme after scheme — PM Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana, PM Awas Yojana, and a sprawling direct-benefit-transfer architecture — each designed to reach beneficiaries without leakage.

The 25-crore figure Thakur cites draws its credibility from a NITI Aayog Multidimensional Poverty Index report (2023), which recorded a decline of approximately 25 crore people from multidimensional poverty between 2013–14 and 2022–23. The Multidimensional Poverty Index measures deprivation across health, education, and living standards — a broader lens than income alone, which is why the number tends to be larger than single-dimension poverty headcounts.

Why Thakur is making this argument in Himachal Pradesh

Thakur represents Hamirpur, a constituency in Himachal Pradesh, and the location tag on his post is deliberate. Himachal Pradesh has long been a BJP stronghold, and welfare delivery — ration cards, housing, cooking gas connections — has been central to the party's ground narrative in the hill state. By anchoring a national achievement to a state audience, Thakur is translating macro-policy numbers into local political currency.

It is also a reminder that the Antyodaya framework is not abstract ideology. Across India's northern states, it maps onto real households — families that received a subsidised grain allocation, a new pucca house, or a bank account for the first time. The sheer scale of 25 crore is what makes the claim both powerful and contested: critics argue that multidimensional poverty metrics can mask persistent income poverty, while the government points to the breadth of the index as proof that deprivation is being attacked on multiple fronts simultaneously.

What the next poverty index update will reveal

The NITI Aayog is expected to publish updated Multidimensional Poverty Index data in the coming period, and that release will be the next definitive checkpoint on whether the trend documented through 2022–23 has held or accelerated. State-level disaggregation, including figures for Himachal Pradesh, will be watched closely to see whether the mountain state's welfare outcomes match the national trajectory.

For now, Thakur's message from the hills is unambiguous: in the BJP's telling, Antyodaya is not a legacy slogan — it is a live, measurable programme. And 25 crore is the number they intend to put on every hoarding between here and the next election.