Barely two days before the first phase of polling in Uttar Pradesh, the Samajwadi Party (SP) and the BJP released their election manifestos. With large-scale unemployment being a pressing issue, the SP has promised to bring in an ‘Urban Employment Guarantee Act’, while the latter has announced that it will provide at least one job or self-employment opportunity to every household. Freebies figure prominently in the Samajwadi Vachan Patra as well as the BJP’s Lok Kalyan Sankalp Patra, even as the Supreme Court recently gave four weeks to the Centre and the Election Commission of India (ECI) to submit their replies on a petition seeking directions to freeze the election symbol or deregister a party that promises or distributes ‘irrational’ freebies in the run-up to the polls.

Both parties have gone all out to woo the farming community, which is a make-or-break vote bank, especially so in the wake of the year-long agitation against the three farm laws. The SP has promised that all small and marginal farmers owning less than two acres of land will get two bags of DAP fertilizer, five bags of urea, electricity for irrigation and interest-free loans. The other sops include two LPG cylinders every year to BPL families, one liter of petrol to all two-wheeler owners and three liters of petrol and 6 kg of CNG per month to auto-rickshaw drivers. The BJP’s manifesto mentions free electricity for irrigation; free scooty for meritorious girl students under Rani Laxmibai Yojana; two crore tablets and smartphones under the Swami Vivekanand Yuva Sashaktikaran Yojana; and two free LPG cylinders (one each on Holi and Diwali) to every beneficiary of PM Ujjwala Yojana.

Late last month, the apex court had expressed concern that the politics of freebies was depriving the elections of a level playing field. However, it’s obvious that various political parties cannot resist the temptation of reaching out to voters through allurements. The so-called vision documents are mostly aimed at short-term gains. The onus is on the ECI to frame specific guidelines on poll-time competitive populism to prevent the deluge of sops from vitiating the poll process.

(Tribune, India)