Unbridled Freebies: PM Modi, Kharge And The Art Of Losing Elections In India

It’s high time to control the prevalent culture of freebies during polls and see to it that the welfare schemes are targeted only at the poor and well deserved. Mallikarjun Kharge’s comment on freebies should be the starting point in that direction. Otherwise, States and along with them, India will land in a debt trap

Debates and discussions about unbridled freebies offered by various political parties to win elections are not new. These debates come to the fore before and after every election. This key issue also reached the Supreme Court, which recently issued notices to the central government and the Election Commission of India (ECI) on a petition seeking strict curbs on pre-poll promises that can potentially drain the exchequer.

A Bengaluru resident filed this petition in the apex court. It is to be seen how the Supreme Court will react to the worrying issue of ever-rising election promises. One should not forget that our courts take their own sweet time to deliver judgments. So, we will have to wait for a couple of years or more to get any judicial response on poll freebies.

But the latest political debate (should I say ‘slugfest’?) on poll freebies also has its roots in Bengaluru.

Mallikarjun Kharge, the president of the Indian National Congress (INC), recently cautioned his party’s State units to be cautious and keep government budgets in mind while making poll promises. At a party’s meet in the capital city of Karnataka, his home State, Kharge, who is also the Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha, openly expressed his concerns over the plans of the Congress government in Karnataka to review free bus ride to women, one of its popular schemes.

“You offered five guarantees in Karnataka. Taking cue from you, the party made a promise of five guarantees in Maharashtra. Today, you mentioned that you will cancel one of those guarantees. This will attract criticism,” he told Karnataka Congress leaders.

His comments came after Karnataka’s Deputy Chief Minister DK Shiva Kumar reportedly hinted that his government’s free bus travel scheme would be reviewed.

In the same breath, Kharge advised party units in poll-bound Jharkhand and Maharashtra to make election promises with fiscal prudence.

“Making promises without considering the budget could lead to bankruptcy; there wouldn’t even be money to put sand on the roads,” he warned, saying, in such an eventuality, the government would face the wrath of all people.

Kharge deserves appreciation for openly speaking against unbridled freebies. But there is a valid context to his outburst.

Himachal Pradesh, which is currently being ruled by the Congress, is said to be in a financial mess. The economic crisis there is so deep that the State government announced levy of toilet tax last month. Under this bizarre tax, commercial establishments and hotels were required to pay Rs. 25 per month for each of the toilets they owned. Of course, the Himachal government withdrew the tax immediately after a national backlash, but that strange tax move revealed the gravity of the crisis there.

Congress is currently in power on its own in just three States - Karnataka and Telangana, besides Himachal Pradesh.

The grand old party of India will face a big political challenge at the national level if a strong message goes out to people that it has failed to keep its poll promises in these three States. If that happens, Congress is unlikely to dislodge BJP from power at the Centre even in 2029. Kharge might have sensed this danger. Hence, his bold statement! But the timing is obviously wrong as polls in Maharashtra and Jharkhand are not far off.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the party he represents, grabbed the political opportunity offered by Kharge with both hands and tried to push Congress on the back foot when it came to tall poll promises.

In a tweet on X, Modi said that Congress finally realised that making promises was easy, but implementing them was tough. “Campaign after campaign they promise things to the people, which they also know they will never be able to deliver. Now, they stand badly exposed in front of the people!” he posted.

In the past too, Modi openly opposed freebies and said that ‘revdi’ culture would curb India’s development. But, it should be noted that the BJP has itself been offering freebies in some of the States where it’s in power. In Rajasthan, it offered subsidies on cooking gas cylinders. In Maharashtra where the saffron party is in power along with Shiv Sena and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) under the MahaYuti banner, it implemented a host of freebies, including Ladki Bahin Yojana under which it has been paying Rs. 1,500 a month to more than one crore women. These schemes were announced to check the impact of the poll promises to be announced by its main rival Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) of which Congress is a part.

So, BJP should also take some blame for toeing the freebies’ culture for its own political gains. But as I said in one of my previous columns, Modi is the only politician who has remained in power for nearly 25 years without doling out excessive freebies in any elections.

That clearly shows that elections in India can be won without giving a plethora of freebies. Further, as both BJP and Congress are national political parties, it is incumbent upon them to have a national policy on welfare schemes that are targeted at the real poor.

Otherwise, reckless poll promises will wreck the country’s economy.

Even the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) pointed this out. The central bank released a report titled ‘State Finance: A Risk Analysis’ in June 2022. In that report, the central bank stated that the debt burden on the States went up thanks to increased subsidies coupled with a slowdown in revenue growth. It also sounded alarm about rising levels of subsidies that rose to 8.2 per cent of total revenue expenditure of States in 2021-22 from 7.8 per cent in the fiscal year 2019-20.

Further, it cited non-merit freebies as a key reason for this upswing. Non-merit subsidies are those which don’t benefit the poor and the deserved.

But some political parties are under the wrong impression that freebies will give them political power. That may be true once in a while, but political parties will land in trouble and lose power if they make tall promises, but fail to implement them.

Further, sole dependence on freebies is a sure shot recipe for disaster as has happened in the case of YS Jagan Mohan Reddy in Andhra Pradesh. That’s like practicing the art of losing elections, to say the least. Anyway, it’s time to control the prevalent culture of unbridled freebies and see to it that the welfare schemes are earmarked only for the poor and well deserved.

Kharge’s comment should be the starting point in that direction. Otherwise, the States and along with them, India will land in a debt trap. And the goal of achieving developed nation status will remain a pipe dream for Indians. That’s for sure.