Just weeks ahead of the crucial state elections in Maharashtra and Jharkhand, the political debate over freebies has returned with a bitter exchange betweenPrime Minister Narendra Modi and the Congress party. It started with Karnataka’s deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar suggesting that a state scheme allowing free bus travel for all women may be revised.
It triggered a stinging attack from the PM who said that the Congress was realising the “hard way that making unreal promises is easy but implementing them properly is tough or impossible”, adding that the people should be “vigilant against the Congress sponsored culture of fake promises”.
Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge was not best pleased with DK Shivakumar and told him off, saying he was sending the “wrong message” ahead of the next round of state elections.
But what the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) describes as a culture of freebies are labelled by the Congress as welfare schemes. And the doublespeak is astounding.
Just days after attacking the Congress for alleged freebies, the PM was campaigning in Jharkhand, where he announced an unemployment allowance of Rs2000 per month to youngsters if the BJP wins later this month.
Freebies or welfare?
The Congress has a similar allowance in its states like Karnataka, Himachal Pradesh and Telangana. In Jharkhand the other day, BJP announced an allowance for women to be paid each month and two free gas cylinders during festivals. Freebies anyone? Or welfare?
A couple of years ago the Election Commission had told political parties to explain how they would raise funds for the promises they make in their manifestos but no one has followed this directive and forgotten it. It is another matter that the Election Commission had no business to wade into this debate in the first place.
The EC had earlier told the apex court that “freebies” are subjective and open to interpretation and that it cannot regulate state policies and decisions which may be taken by a party after they form the government.
They told the top court that it is up to the voters to decide whether the distribution of freebies is financially viable or if such policies have an adverse effect on the economic health of the state.
When handouts don't work
But that apart, the fact is all parties promise freebies in their manifestos but implementing everything that has been promised has proved to be the challenge.
The Congress is learning that the hard way, whether it was DK Shivakumar’s slip up on free bus rides for women or its government in Himachal Pradesh which made 10 welfare promises and has been able to implement only half of those.
To some extent, welfare schemes have helped parties win elections. The Aam Aadmi party (AAP) perfected that with free electricity among other things in Delhi, which is why when Modi first attacked freebies or what he called “revdi” culture a couple of years ago, his main target was the AAP. But the same kind of promises have helped the BJP win polls.
In 2019 when BJP came back for a second term in office, welfare schemes targeting women and the poor in particular played a huge role.
Women centric schemes also helped the BJP in Madhya Pradesh and they are hoping to replicate this in Maharashtra. But it does not always work. Jagan Mohan Reddy in Andhra Pradesh had a long list of welfare schemes but lost badly to the TDP.
Ultimately, voters have to decide if the promises made are worth voting for and what to do if they aren’t kept. But the BJP’s double standards on freebies needs to be called out. It can’t be called a ‘welfare scheme’ when they do it and ‘freebie’ when the opposition does.
