Jharkhand Assembly elections | Welfare politics: how Central and State government schemes shaped voting patterns

The reach of the State government schemes was found to be less than that of Central schemes, and among them, the reach of the Muft Bijli Yojana was found to be more than the other schemes.

The Centre and the States have introduced many welfare schemes for the people. Many of these schemes have been introduced and implemented with the objective of electoral benefits.

A State government is the implementing authority for both Central welfare schemes and those introduced by itself.

In the case of Jharkhand, the outreach of these schemes, however, varies widely (Table 1). Among the Union government schemes, Public Distribution System (PDS) benefited 67% of the respondents, while the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Generation Scheme (MGNREGS) and the Awas Yojana benefited 22% and 27% of the respondents, respectively.

Jharkhand Assembly elections: Full coverage

The reach of the State government schemes was found to be less than that of Central schemes, and among them, the reach of the Muft Bijli Yojana was found to be more than the other schemes. The difference in the number of beneficiaries of the welfare schemes has been because of the difference in their design, the interest of the beneficiaries, and the proactiveness of the implementing authority (Table 1).

The respondents were found to be aware of the type of government which has introduced the welfare schemes. The credit for the introduction of the Union government schemes was given to the Union government, while that for the State government schemes was given to the State government by most of the respondents.

Irrespective of the government, Centre or State, that had introduced a welfare scheme, a larger percentage of the beneficiaries have voted for the incumbent INDIA bloc government. However, the difference among those who voted for this alliance and the NDA is much higher in the case of the beneficiaries of the State government schemes than the beneficiaries of Union government schemes (Table 1).

The non-beneficiaries of most of Central and State schemes were also found to have voted for the INDIA bloc. Except for PDS, Muft Bijli and Abua Awas Yojana, a larger percentage of non-beneficiaries of all the other Central and State government schemes were found to have voted for the INDIA bloc than the NDA.

However, among them, the difference between those who voted for the INDIA bloc and the NDA has remained smaller than that in the case of beneficiaries.

Though unemployment has been an important issue in the State, a very small percentage of youth were found to be aware of the Mukhyamantri Rojgar Srijan Yojana, and even a smaller percentage were found to have registered for this scheme (Table 2).

The Maiya Samman Yojana is considered to be one of the most important factors that has resulted in the victory of the incumbent political alliance. The scheme was widely publicised, and a large number of women have registered and receiving ₹1,000 a month since August 2024 through Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT).

Overall, in the case of Jharkhand, the attribution of credit and acknowledgment of benefits from welfare schemes have helped the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha-led government of the State. Needless to say, besides welfare benefits, other factors too contributed to the favourable voter disposition toward the State government.

Harishwar Dayal is professor at St. Xavier’s College, Ranchi

Published - November 26, 2024 01:45 am IST