Jackpot Or Jumla?

Rahul Gandhi’s minimum income guarantee promise to the country’s poorest has caused more than a flutter in the BJP camp. Will the Rs 3.6 lakh crore scheme prove to be the Congress’s trump card or is it just empty talk?

- Kaushik Deka

It was a chilly winter evening in 2016. India was debating demonetisation while Uttar Pradesh—electorally the most significant state in the country—was gearing up for assembly election a few months away. Congress president Rahul Gandhi had just returned from the state after “witnessing people’s hardships” because of the Narendra Modi government’s decision to render two high-value currency notes illegal. He called some of his party’s top leaders and asked them what they thought of the feasibility of a direct cash transfer scheme to ensure a minimum income for India’s poor. A little over two years later, the Congress has not only firmed up this idea, but also offered it as its biggest promise ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha election. On March 25, Rahul announced that if voted to power at the Centre, a Congress government would unconditionally give 20 per cent of the country’s poorest of poor households a sum of Rs 72,000 annually or Rs 6,000 every month. He claimed the Congress’s Nyuntam Aay Yojana (NYAY), or minimum income guarantee (MIG) scheme, would benefit 50 million households or approximately 250 million people (assuming five members per family).