A kind of competitive tender in terms of economic packages and infrastructure schemes has been unleashed in Bihar with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Bihar Prime Minister Nitish Kumar launching a series of mega infrastructure schemes in an attempt to influence the voters.
It will be difficult to say whether such economic packages will have an impact on voters, but it is certainly an attempt by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Janata Dal (U) to alter the course of political discourse in Bihar from the hackneyed mandal. politics to development politics.
Political parties have a tendency to implement measures before the polls to woo voters and both Prime Minister Modi, since his days as Gujarat’s chief minister, and Kumar have used pre-election measures as political tools to obtain votes. .
PM Modi has launched around 30 projects worth Rs 4,366 crore in five phases as of September 10, including the construction of mega bridges across the Ganges, road projects, a historic railway bridge over Kosi and gas pipeline projects. oil, among others.
Some of these projects are part of the special package announced for Bihar a few years ago. The special package given to Bihar had 10 major oil and gas projects worth 21 billion rupees. Of these, the seventh project was recently dedicated to the people of Bihar, while six were completed earlier. It also inaugurated the 200 km long Durgapur-Banka stretch gas pipeline for which it had laid the foundation stone about a year and a half ago.
The Prime Minister has laid the cornerstones of nine road projects worth 14,258 million rupees, including a ring road around Patna, a mega bridge parallel to the Mahatma Gandhi Setu, fiber optic internet services covering 45,945 villages. of Bihar and an All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in Darbhanga ahead of the state assembly elections scheduled for October-November in the state.
The Prime Minister also patted Kumar on the back for playing an important role in advancing Bihar on the development path. His praise ends speculation about a possible rift between the BJP and JD (U) over the proper accommodation of the Lok Janshakti Party, the NDA’s third ally.
For its part, Kumar has launched a series of small, medium and large plans in addition to offering soups to professors and doctors hired in the last month. He has launched schemes and projects worth Rs 67,700 crore in the department of rural development, roads, energy, water resources, education and its flagship program ‘Saat Nischay’ to present the development face of its government ahead of the assembly elections. .
Some of their vote-catching measures announced during this period include upgrading schools by 3,304 panchayats through Class 9 to ensure the presence of schools in each panchayat. It also announced benefits for 3.5 lakhs of contracted teachers appointed by Panchayati Raj institutions and local urban bodies, increasing their salary by 15 percent, in addition to providing benefits from the Employee Provident Fund.
Bihar, under Kumar, has tactfully used core schemes to its advantage to provide basic services, especially to the extremely poor, increasing social sector spending to launch schemes focused on the health, education and welfare of the extremely backward castes. , programmed castes and tribes.
In fact, the substantial increase in Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan’s budget allocation in Bihar from Rs 900 crore in 2005 to Rs 7,800 crore in 2014 had a significant portion of the core fund.
Although Bihar has been one of the largest recipients of the centrally sponsored plan fund, especially for health and education, it has been one of the worst performing states in terms of utilization.
Kumar’s purpose behind such announcements is to project that his development agenda, which continued unabated in the last 15 years of his tenure, will continue into the next term as well if he is elected to power again. He is trying to take the poll narrative into the 15-year dark phase of the Lalu-Rabri duo versus their 15-year government of good governance and development.
However, opposition leaders described the infrastructure packages as skillful juggling of different schemes to once again fool people at the polls. “People were misled by false promises last time when the Prime Minister announced a package of Rs 1.25 lakh crore for Bihar. Almost 87 percent of Modi’s Bihar package involving Rs 1.08 lakh crore was actually a package of old projects, while Rs 10,000 crore of projects were only on paper, ”said RJD Senior Leader Mritunjay Tiwari.
But package politics does not appear to be a legitimate tool for gaining support in elections, as it does not provide a level playing field for opposition parties. Institutionally alters the level playing field, since the ruling party in power has more room for maneuver than the opposition parties.
While it definitely gives the ruling party or coalition an advantage in a battle of perception, the opposition has nothing to offer other than cornering the ruling ruling party in power for its alleged failures in implementing the schemes, rising unemployment, etc. . so on.
The timing of the announcement of the projects is questionable since it is done just before the Electoral Commission announces the elections to avoid the violation of the model code of conduct. The Election Commission cannot do anything as there is no legal obligation in making such offers.
When schemes are announced in the course of government, they are part of the normal policymaking process, but when they are announced just before elections, they have a direct political context intended to seduce gullible voters.
The direct packet policy is a recent phenomenon that began about two decades ago. It has been successfully exploited by various political parties or leaders in power. But the effectiveness of these packages largely depends on the track record of the political party in power. It pays when the perception of the political party is generally better and has the image of performance in its last term.
However, there is no direct link that the promise of an electoral bonanza will result in electoral success. Because there is a substantial delay between the announcement of the schemas and their implementation. Opposition parties play the killjoy by presenting it as a suspicious move and questioning the timing and intent behind the announcement of the package.
In the past, political parties used to float crisp, concise and catchy slogans that left a mark on people’s minds and produced electoral benefits. Some of the slogans that elicited high recovery value include the opposition ‘Indira Hatao’ to the Congress ‘Garibi Hatao’ in 1971. In the 2014 parliamentary elections, the high-octane BJP campaign ‘Abki Baar, Modi Sarkar’ had an immense impact on the people that led to the installation of the Narendra Modi government in the Center.
Disclaimer:The author is a senior journalist. Opinions expressed are personal.
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