At what point in the evolution of our democracy did genuine welfarism become freebies? It is difficult to say exactly when, but over the years, political parties have come to adopt the strategy of promising the sun and the moon before the polls with the nonchalant approach that, after the elections, the deluge may follow.

Freebies — or what Prime Minister Narendra Modi calls “revdis" — are a particularly potent weapon for ruling parties whose governments are facing strong anti-incumbency. To counter this anti-incumbency, all they have to do, since they are in power, is to utilise the route of Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) to transfer substantial amounts of money directly to voters, irrespective of whether there is money in the treasury or any other means of financing their freebies.

Something of this nature has just happened in Bihar, which goes to the polls for the Assembly elections on November 6. Exactly a month earlier, an hour before the Model Code of Conduct was promulgated forbidding such freebies, the NDA government—notwithstanding the PM’s criticism of revdis — directly transferred Rs 10,000 each to 21 lakh women under the Mukhya Mantri Udyami Yojana. To finance this largesse, the government reportedly........

© News18