Freebies & freebies! Can people vote freely?

Hameed Ashraf | NT

Bengaluru: If freebies and lofty poll promises can win an election, both the ruling BJP and the opposition Congress have already won the Karnataka polls with the Janata Dal not far behind! On Monday, the BJP unfolded a series of promises to attract people of every category - housewives, the poor, landless and the jobless.

This seemed to be a clear attempt by the saffronists to outdo the Congress which had earlier promised every household 200 units of free power, Rs 2000 to the female head of the family, Rs 3000 per month to unemployed youth with graduation degrees for two years and 10 kg free rice to BPL families. Former Congress president Rahul Gandhi has also promised free travel for all women in public transport buses and Rs 10 lakh insurance cover for fishermen.

The BJP tried hard to play catch-up with its manifesto promising three free cooking gas cylinders to all BPL families -- one each during Yugadi, Ganesh Chaturthi and Deepavali. Atal Aahara Kendras in every municipal ward to provide affordable and healthy food, Poshane scheme to provide half litre Nandini milk every day and five kg Shri Anna - siri dhanya through ration kits figured among other promises.

The party also announced ‘Sarvarigu Suru Yojane,' under which the Revenue Department will distribute 10 lakh housing sites to homeless beneficiaries. Not to be left behind, the JD(S) has promised to reserve jobs for Kannadigas in the private sector, give bicycles to high school students and higher pension to senior citizens.

These promises apart, what most voters, going by past experience, are reportedly likely to get are a host of other freebies - sarees, earrings, coins, electrical gadgets, cookware, booze and notes of course packed in envelopes and silently passed on to them days ahead of the polls. There is no point in blaming voters for human psychology is such that people tend to get lured towards free gifts and vouchers, offered by anyone in order to promote their product as long as it is legal.

Anway, it has never been a secret that political parties do offer freebies to voters at the time of elections. According to reports, it was in the 1960's that South Indian political parties had first begun offering free or heavily subsidized rice and later the strategy was followed by other parties across the nation as it became acceptable to offer free education, employment and healthcare with these promises seen to be in tandem with Constitutional welfare objectives.

As former Chief Election Commissioner, OP Rawat had earlier said during an interview, "Except for subsidies given to promote food production, direct benefits for employability, educational attainments, free medical care for the poor, sports, cultural activities, free food for those who are destitute and affirmative action for weaker sections including women, everything else is a freebie and should be so recognized." However activists are not amused. It has, from time to time, been proved that freebies offered by political parties badly influence the decision-making power of the voters.

And it is a known fact that once elected to power, parties conveniently forget the promises till voters are forced to remind them five years later when the next polls are due! Writer, thinker and political activist Yogendra Yadav, says that there is nothing wrong in the promises made by political parties as long as they actually fulfil them. "If a political party is providing milk and gas cylinders to the poor and needy, there is nothing wrong in it. "But someone has to monitor the fake promises," he says.

Other activists are of the opinion that there is an urgent need to frame rules governing the freebie culture.They suggest that it is better if political parties are made to declare the source of funds for fulfilling the political promises of freebies so that the voters can make a choice of electing those providing them a free lunch coupon or those even promising a free trip to the moon!