Assembly polls 2018: Agrarian distress dents BJP vote share, Congress gains

The Narendra Modi government had in 2014 promised reforms. It had also committed to creating jobs and doubling farm incomes. However, the Modi government failed to walk its talk.

A jibe from Congress chief Rahul Gandhi in the last week of January 2015 that Modi’s was a ‘suit boot ki sarkar’ (a government of and for moneybags) — over the government’s land acquisition Bill — and a defeat in the Delhi Assembly polls in February 2015, made the Modi government take refuge in the comfort of plucking low-hanging fruits.

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It expended its energies in widening the net of poor who get subsidised cooking gas, claimed it has constructed more roads, also claimed to have ensured power supply to more homes and launched an ambitious housing scheme for urban and rural poor. Rather euphemistically, the Modi government termed it ‘garib kalyan’, or welfare of the poor, which also included a crop insurance and health insurance schemes.

At the same time, the Modi government largely ignored taking any steps to alleviate agrarian distress and was tightfisted in its Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA) allocations. Read More

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