Jaipur: All the buzz in Ashok Gehlot’s election-bound Rajasthan is over a bunch of cards of different colours. How many cards you have determines how well you can combat the soaring tomato, onion, and potato prices.
So, 50-year-old Babu Lal Bairwa, a contractual employee from Mahapura panchayat in Jaipur, now has a plastic bag full of yellow and pink colour guarantee cards resting safely in a sandook (safe) along with the family’s jewellery and documents.
Gehlot’s new anti-inflation campaign called Mehngai Rahat Camps (inflation relief centres) began in Bairwa’s village Mahapura three months ago. The centres are an important election pitch to neutralise possible voter anger over rising prices. The cards are part of a bouquet of ambitious, profligate welfare outreach ahead of the Rajasthan assembly elections later this year.
Babu Lal isn’t sure how the six guarantee cards will pull him out of debt, or help him enrol his daughter in a private school — all her friends are there. The debilitating inflation had already derailed his plans to rebuild the house.
Three years ago, he invested all his savings — Rs 3 lakh — and took a loan of Rs 4 lakh to do up the family’s 40-year-old single-storey for his son’s wedding. He installed shiny new tiles in the verandah and a solid iron gate. It was the talk of the village, until his son lost his job at a private company during the pandemic. With that, the family’s income took a hit, and the Rs 9,000 his son earned every month stopped coming in.
He had just build the front portion of the house with his life savings and the loan he took when a series of inflationary spikes struck him. First the loss of work during Covid, then the rising fuel prices, and now, the upward spiral of essential veggies.
The drilling and carpentry work have long since stopped. The house’s crumbling inner rooms and dank kitchen now stand out in disrepair against the shiny new front portion.
The tomato has disappeared from Babu Lal’s plate, and the green chilli reduced.
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The relief
Babu Lal did get some immediate relief with the cards. He has been able to save at least a thousand rupees on electricity bills in the last two months. It’s added to his Rs 12,000 monthly salary. He works with the gram panchayat, supplying water in households to make his ends meet. “We are yet to refill the gas cylinder. If we get it refilled, we will save Rs 500 more,” Babu Lal calculated.
But it’s not enough.
His wife, Lachma Devi, 47, has become an expert accountant and culinary innovator balancing rising prices with the family’s nutritional needs and taste buds. Every day in the kitchen is an exercise in creativity. But the dishes she prepares are a little less spicy.
The cards have helped; she no longer she has to resort to making “watery sabzi” so that 250 grams of vegetables can be eked out to feed a family of seven. Now, with the money saved, she can buy a little more lauki (bottle gourd), tinda (round gourd) and bhindi (lady fingers).
Babu Lal collected the cards from one of Gehlot’s heavily advertised Mehangai Rahat camps to combat inflation. As many as 3,000 camps were rolled out across the length and breadth of Rajasthan from Jaipur to Kota to Kotputli between 24 April and 30 June to help lakhs of beneficiaries access the Gehlot government’s 10 flagship welfare schemes.
The schemes include subsidised gas cylinders for Rs 500, 100 units of free electricity, 2,000 units of agriculture electricity-free, Annapurna Food Packets for NFSA (National Food Security Act) beneficiaries, additional 25 days under MNGREGA, 125 days of work under the urban employment scheme (Indira Gandhi Shahari Rozgar Yojana), old age pension of Rs 1,000, a 25 lakh insurance plan under the Mukhyamantri Chiranjeevi Swasthya Bima Yojana, a Rs 10 lakh accidental insurance coverage, and Rs 40,000 cattle insurance under the Mukhyamantri Kamdhenu Pashu Bima Yojana.
According to the government, 18.2 million families registered for the Mehangai Rahat Camps.
“Defeating inflation begins from today! Inaugurated the country’s first historic dearness relief camp at Mahapura in Jaipur,” the Chief Minister tweeted.
Gehlot’s guarantee cards will get villages like Bairwa subsidised gas cylinders, electricity, free food packets, rural employment, health insurance, and accidental insurance schemes. The measures are meant to provide voters a cushion against the blow of inflation. But it has also birthed a race for more goodies from a government desperate to woo voters to give Gehlot the third term.
Rajasthan’s retail inflation has continued to climb. By July, it had recorded the highest retail inflation among all states in India at 9.7 per cent. Rural inflation was at 9.3 per cent in July, while in urban areas it was in double digits (10.4 per cent).
Meanwhile, tomatoes have become the muse of dark humour in the village. Even the village head who just bought an SUV during his second term jokes morosely about how in the poll-bound state, tomatoes are emerging as the new political vegetable replacing the seasoned player, the onion. It’s followed by grim laughter.
Babu Lal’s younger brother, Hanuman, 45, is cutting expenses by buying less milk.
“We cut down the consumption of milk by half a litre,” said Hanuman, who works at a petrol pump earning Rs 9,000 a month. His wife brings in another Rs 6,000 a month working as a helper at a private school.
Together they were entitled to five guarantee cards.
“We could save Rs 1,000 on electricity and Rs 500 on gas cylinders,” he said.
The experience of these two families is reflected across the state. The gas cylinder and electricity subsidy combined with increased old age pensions helped millions of families in Rajasthan navigate the distress.
But the long list of welfare measures that the Gehlot government has launched in the election year has also fuelled hope among voters for more freebies. This month, the chief minister rolled out the Annapurna Food Packet Scheme that will see free food packets distributed to more than 10.4 million families every month. Part of the Rs 19,000 crore Inflation Relief Package, beneficiaries will get one kilogram each of chana dal, sugar, and salt, a litre of refined edible oil and spices like chilli powder, coriander, and turmeric.
He has promised free mobile phones for 1.33 crore women, is backing a caste census for Rajasthan, and has announced that the government will raise the OBC quota from 21 to 27 per cent.
“Maybe this will last till the elections. We are still waiting for the food packet and the mobile phone that was announced,” said Lachma.
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Millions of beneficiaries and millions hope
The announcements have generated hope and excitement across Rajasthan. Babu Lal, Hanuman, their wives and their children were among the 1.79 crore families who flocked to the camps.
The entire state machinery from village heads to BDOs, SDMs, and DMs along with officials from various departments was roped in. The schemes were announced in Gehlot’s big-ticket budget, the last he presented before elections and was followed by an advertising blitzkrieg with the tag line, ‘Bachat, Rahat, Badhat’ (Savings, Relief, Prosperity). There were hoardings, newspaper ads, social media campaigns — all featuring a smiling Gehlot.
There was clear diktat from the top — the schemes had to reach the beneficiaries with minimum fuss and no red tape. DesignBoxed, the company which planned and coordinated the programme said there were no middlemen at the camps, unlike any other government scheme. A secondary but equally important aim is to infuse the Congress cadre with a fighting spirit ahead of what is expected to be a high-voltage election campaign.
“People are oblivious to the benefits they are entitled to and this leads to anti-incumbency among them. This also leads to de-motivation within a party’s cadre for lack of intent and services to show when going to the public,” said a representative of DesignBoxed.
A canny marketing campaign turned to social media to make it a trending topic. Gehlot launched the ‘Jan Samman Video Contest’ and offered cash prizes worth Rs 2.75 lakh to upload short video clips on the 10 flagship schemes online.
Tapping into the discontent with the evolving gig economy, the Rajasthan government also passed a first-of-its-kind bill for gig workers. The Rajasthan Platform Based Gig Workers (Registration and Welfare) Bill 2023 seeks to register all workers, facilitate a guarantee of social security, and give them an opportunity to address grievances.
The CM made multiple trips to all 33 districts holding public events. A note shared by DesignedBox, said that the CM travelled more than 10,000 km across the state.
The state has distributed 7.60 crore guarantee guards, according to the official records. Chiranjeevi health insurance and accidental insurance topped the chart with 1.32 crore beneficiaries and cattle insurance with 1.08 crore beneficiaries, according to data provided by Designboxed.
The chief minister has been hitting back at the BJP, which accuses his government’s ‘revdiculture’, insisting that they are not freebies but financial management. Leader of the opposition and BJP MLA Rajendra Rathore attacked the government for exploiting the state exchequer.
“This election outreach has no budgetary plans. This is purely to woo voters ahead of the elections,” he said, insisting that there has been no relief on the ground.
“A thousand rupees electricity subsidy isn’t relief from inflation. Most people are complaining that they have received no benefits at all. But the Gehlot government is spending crores on marketing to make it look like it’s a success,” he added.
For its part, the BJP in its 2018 manifesto promised 50 lakh jobs in the private sector and 30,000 in the government sector, a Rs 5,000 unemployment allowance to youth below 21 years of age, an urban employment guarantee scheme along the lines of NREGA, a Yoga Bhawan for each district, a Rs 250 crore fund allocation for start-ups in villages, among other schemes.
“BJP cannot counter our master stroke, the Chiranjeevi Health Insurance Scheme of 25 lakh,” Rajasthan Congress President Govind Singh Dostara hit back.
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Gehlot’s gift
Photos and hoardings of a smiling Gehlot have become as much a part of Rajasthan’s scenery as its palaces, lakes and camels. He’s everywhere — on billboards lining highways to facades of government buildings, on banners across tea stalls and kirana stores to posters on bridges and railway stations.
The government has moved on to the free mobile scheme under which 1.33 crore women will be given mobile phones and free internet.
Beneficiaries such as Babu Lal and Hanuman are trying to make sense of all the guarantee cards they have received. They are told by the panchayat samiti that they have got immediate relief in the form of electricity and gas cylinder subsidies, the indirect benefits will come in the form of these cards.
But it’s the promise of mobile phones for women that has got everyone talking.
In Tonk district’s Niwai Tehsil, a group of five women from the Bairwa and Meena communities discuss how they will explore the internet as they wait for their buffaloes to return from grazing. The chatter quickly devolves into a competitive comparison of the number of cards each has. The cards are the most visible sign of Gehlot’s largesse.
Sunita, Sita, Asha, Lali, and Guddi said that most of them received 5 to 7 cards on average and managed to save between Rs 1,500-2,000.
“But is that enough to make quality changes in life?” Sunita, one of them asked. Sita, another woman, however, said that probably the mobile phone will add some.
In the villages, the panchayats are overwhelmed with the planning of the next big event.
“We just got over the MRC and now we are in planning mode for another event—mobile phones” LDC (clerk) at Panchayat Samiti, Asha Sharma said. She is double-checking the first list of mobile beneficiaries in phase 1 of the free scheme.
Village head Hanuman Sahay Chaudhary, who is completing his second term, finds the schemes absolutely political. He recently participated in a protests rally called by the BJP in Jaipur to raise the issue of atrocities against women.
“The state has not dispatched the food packets promised during relief camps but they are coming up with new ideas every day,” he said.
“There has been some relief but not much as you see in the hoardings across the state.”
Rajiv Gupta, a retired professor from the social science department at Rajasthan University sees the camps as an advantage to Congress even though the benefits may not have reached every nook and cranny of Rajasthan.
“The demand for more shows that the beneficiaries are not dissatisfied. BJP has not had an effective counter to the relief camps,” he said. What’s more, the inflation relief camps are just one part of what he calls an “impressive exhibition and promotion” which has given Congress an advantage.
“Those who were left untouched by the social welfare schemes will have aspirations to become the beneficiaries,” he added.
Back in the Niwai Tehsil, five women giggle over the possibility of owning a mobile phone for the first time in their lives.
“We have heard that only one woman as per the Jan Aadhar Yojana will be given mobile phones. So according to this rule, our mother in laws will be given the mobile. The government will start a new fight between saas-bahus,” said Sita.
(Edited by Anurag Chaubey)