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— Raju V.

Promise of goodies: In Vijayawada, Praja Rajyam workers publicise what their party would offer if voted to power — cooking gas cylinders and monthly grocery for Rs 100 each.

M. Somasekhar

Hyderabad: It is raining freebies, sops and promises from parties making a serious bid for power in Andhra Pradesh.

An interesting feature of the April simultaneous elections to the State Assembly and the Lok Sabha from AP is that neither corruption nor anti-incumbency has emerged as major issues. Therefore, as the election race picks up, the ruling Congress, the key opposition Telugu Desam Party (TDP) and the debutant Praja Rajyam Party (PRP) are luring voters with goodies, sops and promises. On offer are colour TV sets, a cash transfer scheme, LPG connection for just Rs 100, two acres of land for each Below Poverty Line family, free higher education, health insurance for the poor and so on. This growing list is an add-on to the existing free power to farmers and subsidised rice.

A vote in Andhra Pradesh seems to come at a stiff price. According to a survey by CMS, the voter in AP, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu gets the highest price for his/her vote from the contestants. It is common knowledge that money and liquor flow freely during campaigning. Now, luring voters with freebies post elections seems to be the latest trend with no party wanting to be left out.

Interestingly, Dr Jayaprakash Narayan of the ‘clean politics’ Lok Satta Party (LSP), recently drew the Election Commission’s attention to the TDP’s promise to distribute colour TV sets and said that if such practices were not checked “there can be even more brazen and egregious promises of, say, distribution of a gold necklace to every voter, or a scooter or an automobile to every household or free liquor to every family.” Political parties may be justified in promising subsidised rice to the truly poor and hungry, homes to the homeless, or subsidised electricity to the heavily indebted farmers. But what of the extravagant promises they have been making?

The Congress traditionally followed the ‘roti, kapda aur makan’ slogan. But when it began to stale, Telugu thespian N. T. Rama Rao made a new promise — rice at Rs 2 a kg. This was a hit, though it generated lot of scepticism about implementation and burden on the exchequer. Thereafter, the average voter in the State seems to have developed an appetite for subsidies, freebies and sops.

Dr Y. S. Rajasekhara Reddy, who rode to power in 2004 with his controversial ‘free power to farmers’ promise, proved this point. Though the scheme is estimated to have cost Rs 400 crore per annum on average, the Government did fulfil its pre-poll promise for the five years it held office. Not just that, Dr YSR doled out sops to various other segments too. He offered the popular Arogyasri (insurance-linked health scheme) to the poor; free education support to Backward Community youths to pursue engineering education; four per cent reservation in education for Muslims, and so on.

In contrast, when Mr N. Chandrababu Naidu tried to get people pay for services — for instance, farmers for power and water — he was bitterly criticised and became unpopular with voters to get a drubbing in the 2004 huatings.

This time around, Mr Naidu was first off the block in offering goodies. The TDP chief announced a free colour TV set for every home if voted to power, a la the DMK in Tamil Nadu (in 2006), and the Congress in Karnataka (2008). He has also come up with a `cash transfer’ scheme, by which Rs 1000-2000 would be transferred directly to the poor every month.

But do all this largesse make economic sense and where will the money come from? The former Union Finance Minister, Mr P. Chidambaram, feels that providing a TV set could be realistic but ‘cash transfer’ was simply mind-boggling.

According to a quick calculation by Dr YSR, the latter scheme could cost up to Rs 35,000 crore per annum. The total revenues of the State is about Rs 90,000 crore, out of which Rs 50,000 crore goes to non-Plan expenditure, including salaries of government employees. So where would the money for such grandiose schemes come from, wondered Dr YSR.

The latest entrant into the poll fray, the PRP floated by Megastar Chiranjeevi, who hopes to cash in on his film charisma and occupy the backward community space with the help of the powerful Kapu community that he represents, has announced an LPG connection to every home for just Rs 100. His party also wants to provide two acres to each BPLfamily.

To the lure of which party will the AP voter fall, or will he look for such mundane things as performance and stability is the question.

More Stories on : Politics | Andhra Pradesh

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