India extends free food programme ahead of state elections

INDIA has extended a free food programme for the poor by three months, a move that will add $5.46 billion to the government’s costs and make for a bigger challenge to efforts to rein in the fiscal deficit, ahead of key state elections.

The extension of the world’s biggest free food programme comes ahead of elections in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s home state of Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh due by the year-end, where he faces challenges from emerging regional parties promising power and other subsidies.

‘The free food programme has helped India avert hunger during coronavirus lockdowns, but many poor people still need this safety net, and that’s why the government has extended the scheme,’ said Devinder Sharma, an independent farm and food policy expert.

‘But it also been extended due to impending state elections,’ he said.

Shashi Tharoor, a three-term federal lawmaker who previously served as a UN Under-Secretary General, said he had submitted nomination papers to lead the 137-year-old party.

His candidacy will be challenged by veteran Congressman Mallikarjun Kharge, currently the leader of the opposition in India’s upper house of parliament, who is also seen as a Gandhi family loyalist.

The Congress, which dominated Indian politics for decades since independence in 1947, has mostly been led by a member of the Gandhi family.

Madhusudan Mistry, the Congress official in charge of running the party election, said the Gandhis would remain neutral. “The Gandhi family has not endorsed anybody’s nomination,” Mistry told reporters.

Around 9,000 party delegates across the country will vote for a new Congress president on Oct. 17, with results likely to be declared two days later.