The Shivraj Singh Chouhan government has faced criticism from the Opposition Congress for increasing the debt level in Madhya Pradesh (MP). While the government debt of the state has risen over the past four years, starting with the Covid-impacted year 2020–21, the situation is not worse than during the second term of the Congress government led by Digvijaya Singh or the first Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in the 21st century.
The government debt approached 30 per cent of the gross state domestic product (GSDP) at the end of 2020–21, much higher than the 22.5 per cent left