Maharashtra Election 2024: The BJP-led Mahayuti government in Maharashtra rolled out several voter-appeasing schemes – from Mukhyamantri Ladki Bahin Yojana to full waiver of toll at Mumbai's entry points – ahead of the state assembly elections due in November.
On October 16, the Mahayuti allies presented a "report card" of the government's work in the last two years (2022-2024). The 'Mukhyamantri Ladki Bahin Yojana', offering ₹1,500 per month to eligible women, was among the highlights.
The ‘Ladki Bahin’ scheme and the timing of its launch (in July) were seen as a move to woo women voters in the state. Flaunting the report card on October 16, Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar said that when the Mukhyamantri Ladki Bahin Yojana' was announced, the initial allocation for the scheme was ₹10,000 crore, but it was raised to ₹45,000 crore. Pawar was quoted by news agency PTI as saying that 2.5 crore eligible women have received ₹7,500 each in five months since the scheme was launched.
Moreover, Maharashtra's Deputy CM and Finance Minister Ajit Pawar announced in the state budget in June that three cooking gas cylinders will be provided to an eligible family of five under the 'Mukhyamantri Annapurna Yojana'.
After the 'Ladki Bahin Yojana,' the Eknath Shinde government announced the 'Ladla Bhai Yojana' in July to give stipends to Maharashtra youths who have passed the 12th grade. This stipend ranged from ₹6,000 per month to ₹10,000 per month.
For senior citizens, the ‘Mukhyamantri Teerth Darshan Yojana’ was announced by the Maharashtra government back in June this year. This is a pilgrimage scheme for senior citizens from all religions.
In August, the Maharashtra cabinet further decided to implement the Unified Pension Scheme (UPS), which the Union government had announced earlier. This scheme ensured that all central government employees who have served for 25 years or more would receive 50 percent of their last drawn salary from the past 12 months as a pension.
Recently, the state government waived toll for light motor vehicles entering Mumbai at all five booths starting October 14 midnight.
In the wake of these new welfare-schemes launched against the backdrop of the upcoming Maharashtra Assembly Elections, the question is whether the BJP-led Mahayuti government has been successful in delivering its previous promises. The ‘Promise vs Performance Report Card’ released by the Informed Voter Project has the answer.
The Informed Voter Project dissected the actions taken and progress made by the BJP-led Maharashtra government towards the fulfilment of promises laid out in the 2019 election manifesto related to Energy, Labour, Transport and Water.
According to the analysis, 100% of the promises for 'Energy' have a 'low' or 'very low' performance, while 86% of Labour and Employment, 75% of Transport and 87.5% of the promises for water have a "medium" or "worse than medium" performance.
As per the ‘Promise vs Performance Report Card’, the “promises broken” included:
1. "We will strengthen the electricity distribution system in the state to keep with increasing power demand."
2. "We will generate electricity from waste"
3. "We will generate 25% of electricity needs of State Govt. Buildings from Rooftop Solar Energy"
4. "We will prepare a new Industrial Power Supply Policy"
5. "We will rehabilitate all Project Affected Persons in the State expeditiously."
6. "We will setup IT Parks in Pune, Nagpur, Kolhapur, Aurangabad and Nashik to generate employment."
7. "We will solve the problems of contract labor by passing a Contract Labor Regulation Act"
8. "We will include all unorganized sector workers in pension schemes."
9. "We will setup news airports in Pune and Nagpur"
10. "We will setup news airports in Amravati, Akola, Yavatmal, Chandrapur, Gondia, Latur, Osmanabad, Solapur, Dhule, Ratnagiri, Kolhapur, Karad"
11. "We will repair all roads in the State to make them suitable for ‘all weather’ transport"
12. "We will create a new mechanism for maintenance and repair of all roads in the State"
13. "We will construct a Nagpur-Nanded-Solapur Kolhapur-Ratnagiri-Savantwadi 'Super Highway'"
14. "We will start Mumbai - Nagpur bullet train"
15. "We will build a Hybrid Metro in Nashik and state-of-the-art MASS RAPID TRANSPORT SYSTEM in Aurangabad."
16. "We will develop cheap and safe water transport on the Mumbai-Ratnagiri-Sindhudurg route"
17. "We will make Maharashtra Drought Free"
18. "We will force Industries to collect rainwater and treat and dispose of the used water to meet their own water needs"
19. "We will complete the Narpar Pinjal river linking project."
20. "We will connect 11 dams and provide water through closed pipes throughout Marathwada."
21. “We will create an integrated system for effective implementation of all drinking water supply schemes in the state.”
The voting for the Maharashtra Assembly Election will take place in a single phase on November 20 and the results will be declared on November 23.
The Maha Aghadi Vikas (MVA) alliance of undivided Shiv Sena, Congress and undivided Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) came to power in Maharashtra in November 2019.
But the Uddhav Thackeray-helmed government collapsed in June 2022 after Eknath Shinde and other Shiv Sena MLAs rebelled against the party leadership and joined hands with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to form a government.
A year later, in 2023, a faction of the NCP led by Ajit Pawar also extended support to the BJP-Shinde government.
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