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AAP, BJP promise the moon: Delhi assembly elections prove freebies now a staple of electoral campaigns
- Welfare schemes for the electorate, which go back four decades ago, are fully entrenched in the Indian political system. It is also an unlikely consensus on a badly divided political chessboard.
In 1985, when the Tamil Nadu chief minister MG Ramachandran met the then deputy chairman of the Planning Commission, Manmohan Singh, to discuss expenditure for a three-year-old mid-day meal scheme for children in his state, it would have been difficult to foretell that four decades hence, such plans would become the mantra to win elections.
In 2025, political sops - disparagingly referred to as freebies - have morphed into the biggest tool for wooing the electorate. The high-stakes Lok Sabha and assembly elections in the country have seen the mainstreaming of freebies as political parties compete in making promises in their manifestos—from mass employment to free electricity and free bus travel for women to cash benefits and subsidised gas cylinders – you name it.
Women-centric schemes seem the favourite of politicians: assembly poll results in Chhattisgarh, MP, Haryana and in Odisha, prompted the BJP-led Mahayuti government in Maharashtra to do the same, gaining convincingly.
The ruling BJP, once opposed to distributing election freebies, has now outdone the others. After a 63-seat loss in the Lok Sabha in June last year, the party has had a change of heart.
With the 70-strong Delhi assembly elections due early February, it’s raining sops in the national capital. A bird eye’s view of India’s welfarist state.
Assembly elections, 2025. AAP's offers. Congress ups the ante
In Delhi, the AAP has a virtually unbeatable record. Now, in its quest for a third term, the party’s list of welfarism includes raising Mahila Samman Yojana from ₹1,000 to ₹2,100 per month and a Sanjeevani scheme to provide free health care to those above 60. The party said 1.3 million people had registered for the first and 15,000 for the second.
For autorickshaw drivers, AAP has promised life and accident insurance for ₹15 lakh, annual uniform allowance of ₹2,500 and ₹1 lakh for their daughters' weddings.
Other promises include a monthly allowance of ₹18,000 for pujaris and granthis. For Delhi’s residents’ welfare associations, the AAP has promised an unspecified amount as security financing. Waving off ‘inflated’ water bills is another pledge.
The Congress has its own assurances: ₹8,500 for skill training of the unemployed, ₹2,500 as pyaari didi yojana and ₹25 lakh insurance under Jeevan Raksha Yojana for Delhi.
If official announcements were not enough, charges are flying fast and thick: AAP leaders allege that the BJP is `buying’ votes in Delhi. Allegations of cash-for-votes have already begun.
Assembly elections, 2024. Maharashtra and Haryana – BJP successfully woos women. JMM does the same
In the Haryana assembly elections, the BJP announced ₹2,100 monthly allowance for women, scooters for girl students, free dialysis for patients and two lakh government jobs. For the Maharashtra assembly polls, as many as 146 freebies were given out by the BJP-led NDA. These included a monthly payment of ₹2,100 to a woman per month costing ₹46,000 crore to the exchequer, a monthly stipend for students, increased benefit for farmers and a new Akshay Anna Yojana for providing kitchen essentials every month to families.
In Jharkhand, the ruling JMM’s attempt to target 12.8 million women voters in the 2024 November’s assembly elections worked.
In Odisha, BJP's manifesto included 21 major sops like the Samrudh Krushak Niti under which paddy crop would receive ₹3,100 price per quintal and Subhadra Yojana, which would allow ₹50,000 cash vouchers to women. It also included development of the fishing industry, increasing road connectivity, providing 3.5 lakh jobs by 2029.
Assembly elections 2023 – Money talks for BJP. Where sops worked - and where it did not
- In Telangana, the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) announced a slew of sops, notably the Rythu Bandhu scheme, which promised to increase the financial assistance to farmers from ₹10,000 per acre per year to ₹16,000 per acre per year. By the time the party was voted out, the government had already disbursed ₹14,657 crore among 117 lakh pattadars for 292 acres in 2020-21.
- For its eventual success in the Karnataka assembly elections in 2023, the Congress assured an increase in the current ceiling of reservation from 50 to 75 per cent for SC/ST/OBC/minority and other communities such as Lingayats and Vokkaligas. The manifesto announced that the Congress government will provide 200 units of free electricity; ₹2,000 every month to every woman head of the family; ₹3,000 per month for two years to unemployed graduates and ₹1,500 per month to unemployed diploma holders.
- In Rajasthan the Ashok Gehlot government had promised an annual allowance of ₹10,000 to women. In Telangana K Chandrasekhar Rao has promised ₹3,000 a month to women from eligible households. Both ended up losing elections.
- Monetary promises were the mainstay of Shivraj Singh Chouhan’s highly successful poll campaign in MP. At rallies, he dwelled upon the money being spent under the Ladli Behna scheme for women, and how he intended to raise it from ₹1,250 to ₹3,000. BJP won three of the four states, including Madhya Pradesh.
Assembly elections 2022, Free rations, the BJP’s game changer in UP
For the Yogi Adityanath government, the distribution of free ration to poor families was the factor that ensured the BJP’s emphatic victory in the 2022 assembly elections. Besides, free gas connections under the Ujjwala scheme, free toilets and houses and promises of free bus rides for women above 60 years, proved to be game changers.
Assembly polls, 2021. AIADMK, DMK, Trinamool Congress, Left Front, BJP – jobs on offer
- To improve the economy, post the pandemic, both the parties in Tamil Nadu, AIADMK and DMK, promised jobs in their manifestos. The AIADMK-led government approved a sub-quota in MBC of 10.5% for the Vanniyars.
- An hour before the EC announced the election schedule in Kolkata, CM Mamata Banerjee said her Trinamool government will announce a hike in the wages of daily wage workers. It helped her to romp home.
- Kerala Left Front finance minister Thomas Isaac announced a loan scheme in the state’s budget for women to buy smart kitchens, in addition to a pension for housewives whereas the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) went public with its intentions to offer ₹2,000 monthly dole for all women in the 40-60 age group.
- Assam Congress announced the party would give Rs.2,000 each to housewives. This was to counter the BJP government’s Orunudoi scheme implemented in 2016, in which ₹830 per month is transferred to bank accounts of 1.7 million women.
Says political economist and author, Arun Kumar: ``The public no longer believes in long term promises. It wants immediate gratification, and political parties are quite willing to give it. Economic disparities are growing, and the common man faces real problems as far as unemployment, education and health issues are concerned. Which is why the AAP that has affected improvements in education and health, has found a constituency.”
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Business NewsElectionsAssembly ElectionsAAP, BJP promise the moon: Delhi assembly elections prove freebies now a staple of electoral campaigns
First Published:26 Jan 2025, 12:15 PM IST
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