BJP banks on welfare to retain core voters
MP ELECTIONS In the face of agricultural distress, tribal disenchantment, the party hopes it can meet the caste and class challenge with substantial welfare schemes
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Chouhan has always believed in individualoriented and familyoriented beneficiary schemes... if someone has directly benefitted from a govt plan, they will not go against the govt YATINDRA SINGH SISODIA, Ujjain-based academic
JHABUA/MANDSAUR: “Sab bhao ki baat hai [it is all about the prices].”
Mangal Gehlot is a security supervisor at a windmill power plant in Mandsaur. But like 70% of Madhya Pradesh’s population, he is also engaged in agriculture.
A resident of Rewas village, belonging to an OBC (other backward classes) group, Gehlot explains why his district was the hotbed of agrarian protests last year, which brought to light the scale of rural anger against the agrarian policy regime in the country, and led to attempts by the government to reform it.
“I grow soyabean. With fertilisers, seeds, tractor and labour costs, chemicals, harvesting, transport, I spend about ₹5,500 per bigha [0.33 acres]. It takes me about three months. This will get me about three quintals [300 kg] of soyabean if all goes well. Each quintal fetches me about ₹3,000, and so that is a total of ₹9,000. After all the effort, I am just about making ₹2,000-3,000 per bigha.”
For Gehlot, this is the crux of the agrarian problem. Input costs have increased, which means expenditure has increased. But the price remains limited, either drowning the farmers in losses for certain crops or giving them extremely modest profits for others.
The government has responded by introducing the Bhavnatar scheme — providing directly to the farmer the gap between the market rate of produce and the Minimum Support Price (MSP). And so, soyabean would fetch, with a government cushion, ₹3,500 per quintal to Gehlot. But the big question is, will this be enough?
Whether it meets the agriculture challenge, retains tribal support and is able to convert welfare schemes into political benefits will decide whether the BJP returns to Madhya Pradesh.
This is particularly true for the Malwa-Nimar region, home to districts such as Mandsaur and Jhabua, where the BJP won 56 of the 66 seats in the 2013 elections.
Jhabua is the heart of the tribal belt of Madhya Pradesh, which has over 20% tribals and 47 of the 230 states are reserved for the community. The BJP, contrary to its image of being only a Hindu-only upper caste party, won 35 of these 47 seats in 2013.
But it may now confront a challenge in these constituencies because the mood is mixed.
In Jhabua’s Boyera village, Mohaniyas are an influential tribal family.
Sunita Mohaniya runs a shop in the village square and says that she has not made up her mind about who to vote for. A right turn into the village, the male members of Mohaniya family are more forthcoming.
The father, Aap Singh, says he has always voted Congress. His son, Bhim Singh, however, says that there is no doubt that the village has got advantages of rural housing and electrification: “I may vote for Modi at the Centre but not for the BJP this year,” says Bhim Singh.
The mood is more adverse in Mandsaur’s Vardal. This area is next to the Thakur-dominated Barkheda Jaising, where the dominant caste believes that the BJP has only worked for the tribals – ironically, the tribals of Vardal do not agree.
Arjun, who is from the Bhil community, claims that a very few houses have been constructed under the prime minister’s housing scheme (Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana) in his village.
“All that Modi has done is make us stand in queue. Did any rich man stand in the queue?” Dileep says. When asked if the BJP’s ordinance to restore the original provisions of the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act had helped them, he replies, “It was there earlier. There is no great benefit.”
In the face of all these challenges, the BJP has one thing going for it, and that is the very thing it is often not associated with — the politics of welfare.
In Jhabua, even the pro-Congress Mohaniya family admits that the villagers now have gas cylinders under Ujjwala; that there is a lot of housing construction that has happened under PMAY, and most homes have toilets. In Gopalpura village, one hears a similar echo.
But it is not just the central government schemes. Apart from Bhavnatar, another state scheme that the BJP sees as a deeply underrated but remarkably successful is Sambhal. It has offered ₹200 every month for electricity, ₹4,000 every month during pregnancy, ₹ 12,000 after the delivery of a child to the mother, ₹2 lakh to families where a person below 60 years of age dies, and ₹4 lakh for an accidentrelated death.
The scheme, which began with unorganised labour, was extended to smaller farmers with less than 2.5 acres of land and was later extended to those with less than 5 acres of land. Twenty million people are reported to have registered to for it.
An Ujjain-based academic Yatindra Singh Sisodia says, “Chouhan has always believed in individual-oriented and family-oriented beneficiary schemes. The political calculation is that if someone has directly benefitted from a government plan, they will not go against the government. But the question is the scale. Is this ever enough in a constituency to tilt the electoral scales or will it be less than those who have not benefited?”
Amidst diverse voices, there is the pattern. The tribal community has a mixed opinion of the BJP, and its support may have diminished compared to 2013; farmers continue to face a crisis though the government has sought to meet it; OBC groups, despite disenchantment, seem to continue to support the BJP; and it is through a mix of substantial welfare concessions, reaching each household, that the government thinks it can meet the caste and class challenge.