Uttar Pradesh govt turns on the handout tap ahead of Assembly elections

The template of cash handouts and promises of financial and other support in the form of loan waivers, housing schemes, unemployment doles, etc has been frequently deployed by political parties before elections. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is no exception.

Presiding over his first cabinet meeting on April 4, 2017, after taking oath as Uttar Pradesh (UP) Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath had ensured that the flagship Rs 36,000-crore crop loan waiver scheme went through.

It was among the foremost promises held out by the BJP in the run-up to the Assembly elections that year. The scheme was hailed as a game changer for the party, which had been facing political wilderness for 15 years before that.

Now ahead of the high-stakes UP polls early next year, Adityanath has espoused the same formula of largesse to poor and bottom-of-the-pyramid sections in quest of countering anti-incumbency, especially in the testing times of the pandemic and resultant socioeconomic hardships.

Taking its agenda forward, the state government presented a Supplementary Budget of around Rs 8,500 crore in the recent winter session of the UP legislature. A substantial portion of it was for targeted sections of society.

For example, Rs 4,000 crore was allocated for unorganised workers, including farm labourers, sharecroppers, and street vendors.

Besides, Rs 670 crore was for senior citizens and farmers’ pension schemes, wherein their payout was increased from Rs 500 to Rs 1,000 a month. This is estimated to benefit more than 5.6 million elderly persons in the state.

The financial grant to the differently-abled has been doubled to Rs 1,000 per month.

Moreover, the honorarium of shiksha mitras (para-teachers), which number more than 150,000 in the state, has been hiked from Rs 10,000 to Rs 12,000 per month. At the same time, the government has provided more than Rs 3,300 crore to the power sector. Of this Rs 1,000 crore has been allocated to ensure 24-hour power supply.

Similar announcements were also made for women, the destitute, village panchayat office-bearers, etc.

In his spirited address in the Assembly on December 16, Adityanath said his government was committed to the welfare of the poor and farmers, and his party was ready to seek the people’s blessings in the coming UP elections. “We have doubled per capita income in UP. This could have been achieved earlier if the previous governments had also worked with the same level of commitment,” he observed.

Although the Opposition parties have been quick to attack Team Yogi for announcing financial support now to allegedly create the smokescreen of a welfare state, the state government is quick to rebut these charges.

“The first Cabinet decision of the Yogi government was the crop loan waiver for the small and marginal farmers. Over the past four-five years, the state has supported the poor and other deprived sections,” said Shalabh Mani Tripathi, the chief minister’s media advisor.

The detractors are not amused. Congress leader Zeeshan Haider slammed the BJP for trying to “fool” the masses at the threshold of the elections.

“What was the Yogi government doing all these years, when the farmers and the poor were dying? What did it do when the pandemic hardships had befallen the state? These promises have been made as a desperate attempt to win the polls,” he said.

Interestingly, there were murmurs of the UP government planning to come up with a farm scheme modelled on PM-Kisan, which entitles the beneficiary farmer to a yearly payment of Rs 6,000 in three instalments.

Since a few weeks are still left for the announcement of the UP election dates, which would trigger the model code of conduct, the BJP still has the leeway of its manifesto, or Sankalp Patra, to add on to its pre-poll bag of goodies.