Power of populism in Rajasthan

Ashok Gehlot may have cracked the anti-incumbency bogey to help the Congress

If there is an award for populism, Rajasthan Chief Minister and Congress leader Ashok Gehlot should get it. Last month he announced a 30 per cent fare concession for women travelling on Rajasthan Roadways buses. The government will subsidise the scheme fully which is estimated to cost the Road Transport department around Rs 100 crore annually.

This follows the unveiling of a scheme of free medicines at all government hospitals and health care institutions in 2011 that has been such a runaway success that the Indian defence forces who also run such a scheme for their employees and ex-servicemen are studying it to take lessons in bringing down costs. Most generic drugs are provided for free to anyone visiting the out patient department sections in state hospitals. The chemist has become largely irrelevant in Rajasthan. The scheme costs in the region of Rs 300 crore per year and serves about 200,000 patients every day. A similar scheme that has attracted much less attention but is also wildly popular is for livestock. Genuine animal medicines are much more expensive than medicines for humans. It is too early to tell what effect it will have on livestock produce in the state - milk, eggs, etc. It is a reasonable assumption that it is set to improve.
 

But the real hit is the pension scheme. Everyone below the poverty line, the aged, widows, divorced women and disabled people between the ages of 53 and 58 is in the process of getting a pension ranging from Rs 500 to 1000 a month.

Eligible workers between 18 and 60 years can contribute an amount as low as Rs 100 at a time to save in the scheme. The government pays an interest of 8 per cent on the total contributions in the retirement account. Gehlot envisages investment of the funds with a regulated fund manager or the pension fund regulated by the Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority eventually.

All this seems to suggest that past history may be reversed. In Rajasthan, the opposition has always been voted in. This trend might change in the Assembly elections due in December and later the general elections.

This represents a major reversal for Gehlot. Just six months ago, his stock was going down despite all these schemes. Vasundhara Raje, who had managed to get an endorsement from the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, seemed to be gaining. But subsequently, the involvement of former Home Minister Gulabchand Katariya in the Sohrabuddin encounter case and other events suggest that Rajasthan is re-evaluating its electoral choices.

In the 2008 elections, the Congress could manage just 96 seats, five short of a clear majority in the 200-member Assembly. Many say only Gehlot, with his infinite capacity to bend before arrogant and domineering members of legislative assembly (MLAs), could have cobbled a government together and actually run it. Gehlot managed to consolidate the Congress party's hold in the Assembly: six MLAs from the Bahujan Samaj Party merged the unit with the Congress. He secured the support of independents leading to numerical security. But it was a perilous existence. Apart from sniping from the supporters of CP Joshi - who does not bother to hide his contempt for the chief minister - Gehlot was mired in controversy surrounding his children. His son is supposed to have been retained as a legal consultant by a company in return for alleged favours. Gehlot's daughter and son-in-law have supposedly been gifted a flat worth Rs 8 crore in Mumbai through a complicated financial transaction involving a company that's listed on the Securities and Exchange Board of India. Although a PIL filed in the Rajasthan High Court was thrown out because the judge did not find any merit in the charge, six months ago, the charges did get traction.

But now, the effect of all these populist schemes is beginning to show and Rajasthan seems to believe that there is something to Gehlot after all. The last bridge Gehlot has to cross is the outreach to the Jats who are angry at the treatment of Mahipal Maderna, now in jail charged with murder of Dalit nurse Bhanwari Devi. Gehlot is doing this as well. The wife of a prominent Jat leader was recently appointed vice chancellor. Everyone noticed this.

Gehlot might gain personal popularity but will he have the will - and the authority - to replace about 30 per cent of the sitting Congress legislators who have done little work in their constituencies and will lose because of anti-incumbency? Hard to say. But Gehlot has a fighting chance of getting the Congress back to power. He must be given full marks for trying, even if at the expense of the exchequer.