From Amma to Indira canteens: Playing the subsidised food card for votes

'To a man with an empty stomach food is god', the Mahatma had famously remarked

In an effort to consolidate urban vote base, Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah earlier this month opened over 100 Indira canteens in Bengaluru, which would offer subsidised food for the urban poor. The canteens, modelled on the Amma canteen that brought back the late J Jayalalithaa into power in neighbouring Tamil Nadu, offer breakfast at Rs 5 and lunch and dinner at Rs 10, with each outlet to serve around 500 people at a time. This writer discusses how political parties have time and again played the subsidised food card to satiate the hunger for votes. 

The late H N