The loud verdict from the assembly election campaign trail isn’t about which party is winning – look no more than the exit poll confusion – but a clear appetite among the electorate for welfare pushes by political parties. Claimants of powers in the states flagged their respective competencies to deliver better welfare schemes. The electioneering also witnessed an admission on the part of the political parties that not just the poor in the villages and the urban centres need their special care, but even the middle class is in need of state support as they toil for their livelihoods.
The electorate is clearly weighing the competing political actors on their claims and credibility to deliver state-supported protective measures. The intensity of the desire on the part of the electorate to gain from the state is only becoming stronger. The desire has always been a mainstay of the electoral politics for the national and the state polls.
Also Read: Assembly Election Results 2023 Live: BJP ahead in Rajasthan and MP, Cong gaining in Telangana
Specific Interventions Win Elections
Former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee went for early polls in 2004. The then BJP strategist Pramod Mahajan was convinced that the ‘Shining India’ campaign was laden with a goldmine of votes to re-elect Vajpayee as the Prime Minister one more time. The people’s verdict revealed that the rural areas were not partaking in the ‘Shining India’. The people in such areas voted for an alternative. The abstractness of the Shining India idea didn’t find enough takers.
Congress read the message correctly that the people want specific interventions, and the Manmohan Singh-led UPA government gave a place of eminence to the Union ministry of rural development. With Raghuvansh Prasad Singh of RJD helming the ministry, UPA built a rural-centric narrative, now known as Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS). The scheme is credited to have delivered the 2009 Lok Sabha verdict to the Congress-led UPA.
The bid to replicate the 2009 success with the National Food Security Act, and Ajiveeka Misison, launched from Banswara in Rajasthan, failed to give a hat-trick mandate because of the lack of visibility of the initiatives on the ground.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led NDA government brought out a bouquet of schemes for the rural parts of the country to address the existing voids in housing, sanitation (toilets), PM Kisan Nidhi (Rs 2,000 paid to farmers every four months), cooking gas, etc with an added feature that the delivery of the benefits to the people was backed with efficiency by mining the Aadhar database, and cutting out middlemen. In addition, a slew of schemes catered to the needs of the people in the urban areas as well. The Modi-led BJP reaped a bigger electoral mandate in 2019.
Growing Appetite For Benefits
People have shown through their electoral choices that they want the political parties to keep reinventing measures for their benefits. The Modi-led NDA government unveiled the 5 kg each person a month free foodgain scheme (PM Garib kalyan Anna Yojna) for about 80 crore people, nearly two-third of the population, as a response to the Covid-19 pandemic.
This was in addition to the foodgrain entitlements under the National Food Security Act. The scheme proved to be a game changer in the 2022 Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh and other states.
But the demand for the expansion of the scope of the coverage of the caring hands of the state became visible this year as the Congress and a few other Opposition parties began pandering to the call for the restoration of the Old Pension Scheme, cash transfers to women, unemployment allowances, and others.
Policy Road Ahead Of 2024
The Modi-led government has the window of the interim Budget to be unveiled on February 1 to make a push for electoral appeal through interventions. The BJP, as is its practice, has been collecting feedback, and some of the suggestions may be accommodated.
Enhanced support for farmers, lowering of fuel prices, ensuring saturation coverage for central schemes, push for the PM Vishwakarma Scheme (for artisans), and a few surprise packages may be in store. This will be in addition to the extension of the PM Garib Kalyan Anna Yojna and a package for the well-being of primitive and vulnerable tribal groups announced by Modi during rallies in Chhattisgarh.
The Centre may, based on the outcome today, zero in on a policy thrust which will yield tangible gains on the ground in quick time. Will Shivraj Singh Chouhan’s Ladli Behna Yojna be a template? The fast response time from the masses expressing appreciation for such a scheme is important to help build the poll narrative for BJP in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
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