The elections have been announced and with it has begun campaigning. There was of course the matter of releasing manifestos and with that having been completed, the finalising of candidates for each constituency is ongoing. Campaigning will begin in right earnest after that. In a sense, this has already begun for no longer are elections based on the merits or demerits of the candidate but on the supreme leader of the party that he/she represents. In that sense, the present CM of West Bengal was not wrong in stating that she is contesting all seats in her state. There is of course a bigger factor – not just in Tamil Nadu but in all states. It is just that TN was probably the precursor – it was here that the art of luring voters became a craft.
There can be many forms of luring. In the early years, there were simple enticements such as being taken in a party car to the polling booth and then being dropped back. This could be interpreted as educating people about democracy. Then there was the alcohol, biryani packet and cash era – which still continues. And now we are in the freebie era. It has become the practice for all political parties to promise all kinds of things, ranging from household gadgets to domestic animals and of course cash. It is the last named that has become the subject of intense debate.
A month or so ago, this was the subject of a hearing at the Supreme Court and the apex body came down heavily on the state. The matter pertained to the Tamil Nadu Power Distribution Corporation Limited, which happens to be absorbing an annual deficit of Rs 50,000 crores. The State had petitioned against the application of 23 of the Electricity (Amendment) Act 2024 which mandated a difference of only 3 per cent between revenue from tariffs and expenditure. The State was reluctant to implement this even partially, as it feared adverse reaction from the public. In effect, electricity itself is a freebie.
The Court however decided to address the larger issue of largesse being handed out, by way of direct account transfers. It questioned as to how revenue-deficit states could manage this, surmising quite correctly that the burden of these freebies were being passed on to future generations, at the cost of infrastructure development. The Court however chose not to pass any orders on these observations as it did not want to be seen to be impinging on the executive.
Be that as it may, the Court has brought to light what is a major problem that nobody wants to address. While subsidies by way of cash and kind are definitely in order for those who are economically backward, the present system does not undertake any scientific process for such disbursal. The ration card categorisation, a most porous classification, is often used as the basis, but of late even this has been given the go by. Consequently, money is handed out to just about everyone.
This poses several questions. First, why do those who do not need these gifts have to receive them? Secondly, are we not creating, as the Supreme Court observed in 2025, a class of people who are forever dependent on handouts? Does this not affect the work culture of a State that was once a byword for it? Thirdly, where does the gifting end? While household goods, educational benefits and healthcare are without doubt vital and therefore prime cases for subsidy or giving free, what about several other schemes that have no such justification? Are we to be prepared for more and more outlandish gifts in the future?
The political parties may well be killing the goose that lays the golden eggs. TN became a prosperous state thanks to great vision, planning and execution. It fostered a superb ecosystem for growth and therefore revenue. The present culture of borrowing from the future for handing out sops for electoral benefits may be the beginning of the end of the State as we knew it. May better sense prevail.