'Cash before code? Stalin’s Rs 5,000 blitz sparks poll season showdown in Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin

• Stalin credits ₹5000 to 1.31 crore women before poll code
• Payment covers three months KMUT and ₹2000 summer assistance
• Move aims to secure women voters ahead of Assembly elections

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In an era when handing out incentives for women is becoming an election strategy, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin stole the thunder from the opposition last week by crediting ₹5000 each in the accounts of 1.31 crore women beneficiaries under the Kalaingar Maghalir Urimai Thittam (KMUT).

The exercise of crediting the money began early in the morning and was completed by the end of the day on Friday. “We are receiving information that a group in Delhi, along with another group in Tamil Nadu that acts as their slave, is conspiring to halt this scheme, for the next three months, citing elections. There are also reports that some are attempting to approach the court,” Stalin said in a video announcement early Friday morning.

KMUT is a 2021 poll-promised scheme of the DMK government, rolled out in September 2023, whereby a monthly payment of ₹1000 is given to one woman in a family with an annual income less than ₹2.5 lakhs and electricity consumption of 3600 units per year, and those with less than five acres of irrigated land or 10 acres of unirrigated land. A large section of beneficiaries of this scheme is from the ST and SC communities. Another poll promised a pet women-centric scheme of this government is free bus rides for women.

Preempting a possible stop to the KMUT scheme, as the Assembly election is approaching, the Stalin government has credited the monthly payment of ₹1000 for three months - February, March, and April, amounting to ₹3000 to the beneficiaries. Alongside, the government has also credited a sum of ₹2000 each as special summer assistance, totalling to ₹5000 each. Stalin also promised an increase in the monthly payment to ₹2000 if elected back to power.

Earlier, government schemes, like cash support to farmers in 2004 and the populist free distribution of colour television sets in 2011, were suspended by the Election Commission of India to maintain the model code of conduct once the election was announced. Given the current political environment, the ECI has been erratic in following the model code of conduct, depending on which party is in power.

As the ruling BJP at the centre is in opposition to the Tamil Nadu government, Stalin, obviously, did not want to take chances with the next three months’ payouts under KMUT. But, certainly, the payment of ₹2000 as special summer assistance was a political move.

However, the special summer assistance of ₹2000 comes nowhere near the ₹10,000 each that the JD(U)-BJP government deposited to about a crore women under the Mukhyamantri Mahila Rojgar Yojana during the Bihar election last year, while the ECI looked the other way and overlooked the model code of conduct. In the 2024 Maharashtra election, too, the Mahayuti government released two installments of ₹1500 and ₹2100 to women under Mukhyamantri Majhi Ladki Bahin Yojana, just before the election. This time too, ECI did not consider bringing it under the model code of conduct.

On one hand, the partisan attitude of the ECI and on the other brazen schemes of the BJP-led governments to buy votes have prompted the Stalin government to do the same.

The effort is also to wean away women voters from the AIADMK, whose support base includes large sections of women from the time of MGR and Jayalalithaa.