Ignominious defeats of Jagan, KCR prove that unbridled freebies make for a bad poll strategy

The YS Jagan government spent a whopping Rs 4.50 lakh crore on various welfare schemes in five years from June 2019. But many beneficiaries believed that he gave the money with one hand and took it back with another hand. Due to many high-value freebies, the BRS government in Telangana didn’t clear dues under popular Arogyasri to hospitals. Besides, pending payments under fee reimbursement scheme and incentives to industries also soared

It is said that YS Jagan Mohan Reddy, stung by the humiliating defeat that his YSR Congress Party suffered in the recent Assembly polls, thought of giving up politics and heading to the Himalayas. For the uninitiated, ‘going to Himayalas’ means shunning worldly things, taking sanyas and living in the Himalayas.

Jagan, who stormed to power in Andhra Pradesh and became its Chief Minister by winning 151 of 175 Assembly seats in 2019, had aimed for an encore in the 2024 elections. And that too nothing short of a clean sweep! His coterie and the Indian Political Action Committee (I-PAC), the political consultancy that he engaged, kept him in an illusion that he would achieve this undemocratic goal. I used the harsh word illusion because YS Jagan confidently said that his party YSRCP would increase its 2019 tally of 151 seats in the 2024 polls even after the elections were held on May 7!

His team could not have been more far from reality!

But reality dawned on him only after results were declared on June 4 and YSRCP’s tally was reduced to an abysmal low of 11 MLAs. That Himalayan defeat should have come as a big shock to the YSRCP founder. So, there is nothing wrong in Jagan’s wish to go to the Himalayas.

But why did Jagan lose elections despite spending record amounts on welfare schemes?

It is a known fact that the Jagan government spent a whopping Rs 4.50 lakh crore on various welfare schemes in five years. Of this massive amount, nearly Rs 2.70 lakh crore was paid directly to the beneficiaries under direct benefit transfer (DBT) schemes. He pressed the ‘DBT button’ 130 times during his five-year tenure to facilitate money transfers to the beneficiaries. He expected that all the beneficiaries would vote for him and make his electoral victory a cakewalk. But that did not happen as many beneficiaries believed that he gave the money with one hand and took it back with the other as prices and tariffs skyrocketed.

Further, utter lack of development, his lopsided plan of developing three capital cities for a State which doesn’t have even a single capital and his disinterest in attracting new investments into Andhra Pradesh cost his party dearly.

This apart, YS Jagan has excessively relied on those who have sharp tongues. But these leaders are not efficient enough to gauge ground realities. YSRCP General Secretary Sajjala Ramakrishna Reddy as well as former ministers Kodali Naidu and RK Roja top this list. The less we talk about Ambati Rambabu, the party’s motormouth, the better. Despite being a cabinet minister, he behaved like a club dancer. He should have kept in mind that Indian democracy is not 'matured' enough to accept those who dance to item songs on the streets, as ministers. For his part, Jagan should have sacked him as minister immediately after his dancing video surfaced. But Jagan didn't even pull him up. All these added fuel to the dissatisfaction fire among the electorate, putting curtains on YS Jagan’s ambition of a second consecutive term.

To bounce back, YS Jagan should develop a core team of leaders who are committed to the development of the State, have good political common sense, keep their ears to the ground and show political maturity. For them, the interests of the State should come first. So are the interests of YSRCP.

For that to happen, he needs people like Buggana Rajendranath around him, not those who can't put forth a mature argument. He should also keep away from those dud minds and sycophants, who are more interested in amassing wealth at the cost of the party.

However, YS Jagan is not the only politician losing polls despite dishing out unbridled freebies. For his part, Kalvakuntla Chandrashekar Rao (KCR), the founder of Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS), also splurged government funds on farmers and scores of others in Telangana.

The KCR-led BRS government spent more than Rs. five lakh crore on welfare schemes during its nine years rule from the middle of 2014. Though welfare schemes were less in its first term between 2014 and 2018, the schemes increased in the second term, including the Dalit Bandhu scheme.

Rythu Bandhu, an investment subsidy scheme for farmers launched just before the 2018 Assembly polls benefited the pink party in that election. Under this scheme, the BRS government paid a whopping Rs. 80,500 crore in the last five years. Besides, the farm loan waiver scheme under which agricultural loans up to Rs. one lakh were waived off twice, also cost a bomb. A survey has estimated that nearly 36 per cent farmers don’t own any land in Telangana. These two schemes have mostly benefited land owners, not all the farmers who cultivate and also agriculture labourers. Such high-value freebies to land owners angered the poor in the rural areas in Telangana.

In a similar vein, the Dalit Bandhu scheme backfired on the BRS government as well. Under this, the government announced a financial subsidy of Rs. 10 lakh to each Dalit family. Interestingly, this scheme caused heartburn among SCs as only a handful from that community benefited from it. Non-beneficiaries turned against BRS, paying way for the victory of Congress candidates in most of the seats reserved for SCs in the 2023 Assembly polls.

Further, due to such high-value freebies, the BRS government didn’t clear dues under Arogyasri scheme to hospitals. As a consequence, most of the corporate hospitals stopped admitting patients under this popular scheme. Besides, pending payments under fee reimbursement to colleges and incentives to industries also soared. The KCR government even failed to pay salaries to government employees on time. All these played a role in the ouster of the KCR government.

Therefore, political parties, which make plethora of poll promises that require funds, and announce high-value schemes are unlikely to retain power as States lack financial resources to absorb such financial burdens and any attempt to fulfill such promises by raising taxes, tariffs or through borrowings will boomerang, a brutal truth that both YS Jagan and KCR will remorsefully vouch for.

The ignominious defeats of Jagan and KCR prove that unbridled freebies are a bad political strategy though helping the real poor is not. Politicians, who eye long-term power, should learn a lesson or two from Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who was Chief Minister of Gujarat from October 2001 to May 2014, before becoming the country’s Prime Minister in which position he now continues for the third successive term. He has been elected to such high positions continuously for nearly two-and-a-half decades despite his public disapproval of freebies or revdis for votes. Further, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the political party he represents, won eight MLA seats and eight MP seats (47 per cent of total MP seats) in Telangana in the recent polls even though unlike its main rivals such as Congress and BRS, the saffron party did not promise any freebies. Will ambitious politicians take cue from this and work on their strategies?