The welfare schemes of the Ashok Gehlot government are the big talking point in this Assembly election in Rajasthan, leading often to heated debates between those who have benefited from it and those left behind.
At a highway tea shop in Luni, near Jodhpur, septuagenarian Ganga Ram Bishnoi, in the midst of an animated discussion on poll prospects this election season, between sipping sweet tea from a tiny paper cup declares, “I got ₹40,000 compensation from the government when my cow died of lumpy disease.” This raises a howl of protest from Bhawra Ram, who complains about being left out. Many men flaunt the smartphones distributed by the State government to widows and girl students which now sit in their pockets. A few mutter about the inflated electricity bills, but their voices are drowned out by those lauding the government for giving 100 units for free. And there is unanimous appreciation for the Chiranjeevi Yojana — the State government’s universal medical insurance scheme that provides a cover of up to ₹25 lakh. Ask them who is winning the election, the BJP or the Congress and a multitude of voices and opinions rise. Again, Mr. Bishnoi, cutting through the noise, proclaims, “Humme Congress se koi matlab nahi hai, abki Ashok Gehlot ne kaam thik kiya hai. [We don’t care for the Congress, but this time Ashok Gehlot has done good work].”
His remarks almost mirror the Congress posters here. The election fever is yet to peak here. Among the few posters put up around the Jodhpur city, it is Chief Minister Ashok Ghelot’s face smiling down from bright pink billboards, along with State party president Govind Singh Dotasra, with the slogan, “Kaam Kiya Dil Se, Congress Phir Se”. The faces of Central leadership, including Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and the Gandhi family are accommodated into stamp size slots.
In the 2018 Assembly elections, the Congress had won seven out of the 10 Assembly segments in Jodhpur district, contributing to its victory in Jaipur. This time, however, for the Congress, it is a contest between overwhelming popularity of Mr. Gehlot versus voters’ disenchantment with the Congress legislators.
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The real danger
And while there is all-round praise for all the schemes, it is in real danger of tripping over the gap created by raised expectations by welfare measures issued forth from Jaipur to their implementation at the ground level.
At the Shergarh bus stand, some 91 km away from the Jodhpur city centre, an eye-catching bright pink building hosts the Gramin Indira Rasoi — that serves a thali at ₹8. It is 12.30 p.m., just before the lunch hour rush begins, three men stroll in hoping to get a hot meal. Before they can be served, a token has to be generated and their details fed into the system. But the computer can’t be switched on, because there is no electricity. The supply is erratic, informs 23-year-old Om Prakash who runs the establishment.
“Every day, we feed up to 30-40 people, this doesn’t happen daily,” he assures, launching into a long rant on how the MLA is unresponsive to their complaints about electricity, roads and other daily inadequacies. Mora Ram Meghwal, a retired teacher, sitting at the village chaupal, a few metres away from the Indira Rasoi, cites another example of gap in policy and its implementation. “Women get a 50% discount on fares on the State government buses. But where are the State government buses? There is only one bus that leaves at 8 a.m. for Jodhpur from here,” he said. The private buses charge ₹120 per person.
“Ashok ji has brought in the scheme, he cannot ensure the implementation in every village and every tehsil. That has to be done by the area representatives. Once elected, these guys switch off and resurface only at the next campaign,” Mr. Meghwal, who comes from a Scheduled Caste community, said. The anger against the MLAs seems almost proportional to Mr. Gehlot’s own popularity.
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Sitting MLAs
Irrespective of the anti-incumbency facing their sitting legislators, the Congress is fielding 67 of its 100 sitting MLAs again. So far, the party has only declared candidates for 95 seats and the remaining are expected in a few days.
Mr. Gehlot was 26 years old when he contested the Assembly elections for the first time in 1977 when the Congress was at its lowest ebb. He lost the Sardarpura Assembly seat by 4,000 votes — his last defeat from the seat. In 1998, he returned to contest from Sardarpura, after he was picked to lead the State, stunning many veterans vying for the Chief Minister’s chair. He was the Jodhpur MP and formally not in the race. The seat was vacated for him and since then, he has fought six elections here and is facing the seventh. At 71 years, he shows no signs of fatigue. “I want to leave this chair, but the chair is not leaving me,” Mr. Gehlot proclaimed at a press conference in Delhi.
On October 23-24, just after the party renominated him from Sardarpura, he was back to meet the voters on a whirlwind tour. “He has an immense capacity to meet people. He spoke to the voters during the day and at night till 2 a.m. he was speaking to the Congress cadres,” Jaswant Singh Kachhwaha, Mr. Gehlot’s nephew and election agent, said. In this packed schedule, he also found time to score a political point by dropping in at six-time BJP legislator 85-year-old Surya Kant Vyas, whom the BJP dropped this time.
It remains to be seen whether indefatigable Mr. Gehlot is able to make up for voters’ fatigue with the Congress legislators.
