Competitive welfarism to the fore in run-up to elections

Radhika Ramaseshan

Senior Journalist

THE term labharthis, which translates as beneficiaries of statutory welfare schemes, gained currency after the BJP won a second term in Uttar Pradesh by blending a package of doles with the Hindu ‘identity’ in what certain commentators claimed was a perfect electoral formula. The debate over whether welfarism took precedence over bigotry is inconclusive, though one dare say that while the monthly rations handed out for gratis to underprivileged people might have helped the labharthis tide over the Covid challenges to an extent, Hindutva was the bedrock of the BJP’s poll campaign in UP. The two elements were not complementary. Indeed, the success in the elections induced a degree of complacency in the UP Government to pursue welfare economics, even as symbols of power such as the bulldozers that targeted Muslims and silenced the community played themselves out to the point that social polarisation has been complete.

However, politics never stagnates. A certain winning template might work in circumstances that need not necessarily be replicated in other conditions. In UP, the Opposition was fragmented and largely defensive while answering the BJP’s rhetoric. The BJP tried to communalise Karnataka, but it only gave a huge fillip to the Congress’s welfare-centred campaign.

Are the labharthis back in fashion ahead of five significant state elections spanning north/central India (Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh), North-East (Mizoram) and the south (Telangana)? Madhya Pradesh has nothing in common with Mizoram. Mizoram, where the ruling dispensation is backed by the BJP, is in the throes of a social churn caused by ethnic and religion-propelled violence in next-door Manipur. The only thread that can potentially bind the voters of each state is the scepticism and doubts over the notion of the BJP’s ‘double-engine sarkar’ that was halted in its tracks in Himachal Pradesh and Karnataka.

Voters sometimes react similarly to the volatility in their lives triggered by inflation and unemployment. Welfare sops are intended to counter the negative fallout of price rise and the lack of jobs in the BJP-ruled states, while each time a Congress government announces a scheme for women or students, it can justifiably sniff at the BJP’s boast, regardless of whether it brings in electoral dividends. The BJP’s sole benefaction to the current dissatisfaction over price rise and job losses is enshrining labharthi in precept and practice, wherever necessary.

Rajasthan is among the poll-bound states which adopted the labharthi idea in its entirety to buck the negatives created by factionalism within the Congress, the threat to Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot by his rival, Sachin Pilot, the possibility of a revolt among certain major castes and the history of a dispensation change because in each election voters pitilessly throw out the incumbent.

Gehlot hosted back-to-back labharthi festivals where in video conferences he asked women voters if his welfare programmes reached them or not. The CM is apparently cognisant of the fact that his flagship Mukhyamantri Nishulk Dava Yojana, which sought to distribute generic drugs free of cost among the poor, flopped and denied him a second term in the 2013 elections. There was a perception that his government did not adequately publicise the merits of the scheme. Therefore, this time, Gehlot did what the BJP expertly does — publicise the bag of goodies unrolling every now and then. On the face of it, the rationale of his latest smartphone scheme for women makes abundant sense. It could potentially afford better access to online educational resources to children and make women less dependent on the family’s male members to use phones.

The bonanza of smartphones was preceded by other programmes such as free medical insurance, cattle insurance, accident insurance, 200 units of free power to farmers and 100 units of domestic power free of charge. Gehlot also implemented a programme that topped the erstwhile United Progressive Alliance government’s agenda but never reached fruition — the urban employment guarantee scheme.

In the Congress-BJP head-to-head in poll-bound states barring Telangana, where the stage seems set for a triangular contest, the prelude suggests that populism and welfarism might become the dominant themes. Why else would the Centre respond by scaling down the price of cooking gas cylinders by Rs 200 per cylinder after the Congress incessantly called out the Modi government for increasing the cost of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) consumed by households? The Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana was touted as one of the Centre’s stellar pro-poor programmes, considering that LPG is the primary cooking fuel for nearly 50 per cent rural and 90 per cent urban families. The latest price cut will be in addition to the existing Rs 200 subsidy per cylinder that effectively ensures relief of Rs 400 per cylinder to about 10 crore Ujjwala beneficiaries.

In the flush of Chandrayaan 3’s success and the leg-up it gave to the BJP’s ‘nationalism’ theme song, it was believed that other issues would get eclipsed in the run-up to the elections. Welfarism might have been the last thought on the mind of the top brass of the BJP and the Modi government, which were literally over the moon after ISRO pulled off the lunar feat. But there was a hard realisation that inflation was an irritant that could not be ignored, more so after the Congress promised to provide LPG cylinders at Rs 500 if voted back to power in MP and the Rajasthan Government reduced the price by Rs 500. Did the BJP intuitively sense that there are limits to its nationalism-themed stories in state elections?

The Prime Minister packaged the LPG price cut as his ‘gift’ to women on Raksha Bandhan, quite like MP Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, who marketed his decision to enhance financial aid for women under the Ladli Behna scheme from Rs 1,000 to Rs 1,250 per month as his rakhi offering.

But in the BJP’s political schema, be sure that bread and butter — or rather dal-roti — will eventually be anchored in emotions because welfarism cannot exist in a vacuum for the party.

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