Over 2,000km away in Kaziranga, Assam, Rubika Ingtipi, 25, a vegetable seller from Karbi Anglong, echoes similar sentiments. “We get help under the (state government’s flagship) Orunodoi scheme, along with benefits from other welfare policies. Roads have become much better. That is all we ask of any government. And that is why right now, I like Modi and BJP,” she says.
Ruma Bhuiyan, a homemaker in her 40s, from Patharchuk village in the nearby Nagaon district, agrees. “We have got a lot of facilities and benefits from BJP, from Orunodoi to Ujjwala, houses with toilets to free rations. We don’t vote as per party affiliation but based on the work done. Hence, we want Modi to be prime minister again,” she says.
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Damore, Katara, Ingtipi and Bhuiyan epitomize how many people in BJP-ruled states perceive the party’s central and state-level initiatives. From Assam to Uttar Pradesh to Madhya Pradesh, the saffron party’s welfare pitch—from providing income support, housing and gas supply to electricity, free rations and better roads—remains strong and seems to be standing it in good stead.
As it seeks a third term in power at the centre, BJP is highlighting the success of this combination of schemes, which reflect Narendra Modi’s ‘double engine government’ pitch. Modi uses the term at every opportunity, including in the run-up to the ongoing Lok Sabha elections. For instance, addressing the Uttar Pradesh Global Investors’ Summit in Lucknow in February this year, he said “red tape” had been replaced with a “red carpet” for investors in the seven years of the state’s “double-engine” government under Yogi Adityanath.
Modi’s marquee schemes
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When BJP stormed back to power in the 2019 elections, surpassing all expectations and winning 303 of the 543 seats, Narendra Modi’s strong welfare platform was widely credited for the massive win. ‘Jan Kalyan’ (social welfare) was the main pitch on which the Prime Minister and his party fought the polls, making sure they had enough to show for it.
Among the most important of these schemes was the flagship rural housing scheme, Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana–Grameen (PMAY-G). The scheme, which was introduced on 1 April 2016, during Modi’s first term, is the revamped version of the Indira Awas Yojana, with the goal of providing “housing for all”. It became hugely successful, as the Centre re-worked and closely monitored the programme to ensure impressive completion numbers.
Ujjwala, the other popular welfare scheme, aims to make clean cooking fuel such as LPG available to rural and deprived households, and directly targets the woman voter. Then there is the national public health insurance scheme Ayushman Bharat, and PM Kisan Samman Nidhi, which provides income support of ₹6,000 per year in three equal instalments to all landholding farmer families.
The Har Ghar Nal Se Jal scheme, meanwhile, provides a functional household tap connection to every rural household.
The state-level push
But, while Modi reaped the benefits of the central government’s welfare delivery ideas in 2019, this year, it is BJP state government policies that have added heft to his pitch and boosted his re-election chances. In fact, often, it is a BJP state government’s schemes that seem to be more popular and fresher in the minds of voters, thanks to their recency and continuity. Most of Modi central welfare schemes date back to his first term, which ended in 2019. Moreover, some of the more popular initiatives, such as rural housing and Ujjwala, are one-time benefits. The party’s state government schemes, on the other hand, are of a more continuous nature.
For example, former chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan’s Ladli Behna Yojana in Madhya Pradesh, which offers ₹1,250 a month to women from poor and middle-income households, with roughly 13.1 million targeted beneficiaries, is hugely popular. As is Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma’s Orunodoi scheme, which aims to provide monetary benefits to more than 24 lakh poor households in the state. The scheme provides financial assistance of ₹1,000 per month, with women being the beneficiaries.
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Hitesh Bajpai, BJP spokesman in Madhya Pradesh, explains the party’s appeal. “The BJP government in Madhya Pradesh has done incredibly well in welfare delivery, which has been a focus area. For example, we have already handed over 40 lakh houses to the poor. Around 12.5 million women benefit every month from the Ladli Behna scheme,” he says.
“An important factor is the double-engine government. For example, if the Centre is giving ₹6,000 to farmers, the Madhya Pradesh state government has matched that with another ₹6,000, thus giving a boost to the scheme,” Bajpai explained. “Another example of the effective double-engine government is how all our schemes are routed through Jan Dhan accounts (a flagship initiative of the Modi government), which has helped us identify beneficiaries and ensure the benefits are effectively disbursed.”
An example of effective double-engine government is how all our schemes are routed through Jan Dhan accounts.
—Hitesh Bajpai
In Uttar Pradesh, chief minister Yogi Adityanath extended his government’s free ration scheme in the very first cabinet meeting of his second term. The UP government has also gained in popularity because of better electricity supply and enhanced safety thanks to its focus on improving law and order.
The BJP currently controls nearly two-thirds of the country’s 28 states, ruling on its own in 12 and through a coalition in five. These numbers mean this centre-plus state combination on the welfare delivery front could give the party a significant fillip in the polls.
The ‘suvidha’ story
Suvidha has become a buzzword this election season among voters who support the BJP. The term is used to refer to benefits derived from these welfare schemes championed by the party.
“BJP has given us good roads, law and order and facilities like free gas, tapwater and a house,” says Ravinder Singh, 29, a resident of Khurja in Uttar Pradesh.
Singh, who runs a small grocery shop, says he has not always been a BJP voter, but the ‘suvidha’ he has received since 2014 has drawn him to the party. “We got the gas connection and a house earlier, but since Yogiji came to power, the road network has also improved substantially, making life much easier for us,” he adds.
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In Madhya Pradesh, Lalita Solanki, a resident of Pipaldela village in the tribal-dominated Jhabua district, runs a small tailoring shop. Solanki, who is in her late 20s, sews away on her sewing machine on a particularly warm afternoon, as she explains why she supports the saffron party. “BJP has done good work. It has given us houses, gas connections, better roads, water through Nal Se Jal and most importantly, the Ladli Behna scheme,” she gushes. “All women get regular monthly financial support. Many women have absolutely no source of income and their husbands don’t give them any money either. Mamaji made sure that with the Ladli scheme, women are financially empowered, at least to some extent, and have some disposable income to spend on themselves.”
The feisty Solanki, who studied in a school in Jhabua town, proudly calls herself a ‘12th fail’. She now wants to empower her 11-year-old daughter, and has hence enrolled her in an English medium Kendriya Vidyalaya.
The excluded
However, not everyone views the BJP’s welfare delivery story with rose-tinted glasses. Despite all the push and hoopla, there remain two primary categories of disgruntled voters. One is those who feel they are deliberately being excluded and the second is those who are upset that the benefits are not percolating to them.
“I have been voting forever. My teeth are now falling out, but what have I got? We got this house when Congress was in power but have received nothing since then. We haven’t got Ujjwala, Orunodoi, insurance benefits, free ration, not even a toilet. The BJP government does nothing for us. It only benefits the majority community,” says the septuagenarian Morjina Begum of Na-Ali Mur village in Assam’s Nagaon. She and her family, natives of the village, are daily-wage earners, working either in nearby farms or doing odd jobs.
The issue of benefits not reaching the intended beneficiaries is more prevalent than the BJP top-rung would want to imagine.
The tea garden workers in Dergaon in Assam’s Jorhat also seem visibly upset. “We have got nothing from the government—no toilets, no houses, no Ujjwala, and no Orunodoi. The roads in our areas are also bad. We are always deliberately ignored. Those who have already benefited keep benefiting more, while tea tribes like us keep suffering,” says Laxmi Hajam.
In Ujjain, Madhya Pradesh, 33-year-old Nepal Singh of Pipliya Molu village also has a grouse. “Modiji has launched many welfare schemes. But there is corruption at the lower levels. So, we don’t receive the benefits. Very few in our village have got Ujjwala, or houses,” he says. Singh, a farmer, has a prominent orange tilak on his forehead and says he has always been a “Bhajapai” (BJP supporter).
The issue of benefits not reaching the intended beneficiaries is more prevalent than the BJP top-rung would want to imagine. In Dudlai village in Madhya Pradesh’s Dewas district, a group of women sort the onion crop in the morning sun.
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Sangeeta Nagar and Sodhra Bai, both in their 50s, are the most expressive and eager to air their grievances. “We have not received the benefit of many schemes. Our houses are broken, but we haven’t received a house. We do get ₹1,250 from the Ladli Behna scheme, but that is about it. We like both Modiji and Shivrajji—they have launched some good schemes. But middlemen don’t let them reach us. How will the top leaders know this? We can’t really blame them,” says Nagar.
Modi’s challenge
To be sure, Modi is hardly the first politician nationally to have used welfare as an effective political and electoral platform. In 2009, the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance’s marquee rural jobs guarantee scheme, Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), which promises 100 days of work a year to each rural household, was widely credited for the decisive mandate that brought the coalition back to power. The scheme, introduced in February 2006, was fresh in the minds of voters in the run-up to the 2009 polls, thus benefiting the Congress substantially.
However, besides other factors that went against the Congress ahead of 2014, diminished voter interest in the flagship scheme also meant the party had little to show for itself on the welfare front. Similarly, while Modi’s signature welfare schemes remain popular, given the time since they were launched and started reaching beneficiaries, their popularity is bound to plateau.
“We have received many benefits from Modi, which is why we support him. But what next? Just like an artist needs to keep doing new things to keep people entertained, the government must also keep rolling out new policies,” says Ravi Pandey, a 43-year-old salesman in a bookshop in Lucknow, summing up the challenge before Modi.