2025: Polls and the Fate of Freebies

This year will have the fewest elections of any in the current five-year electoral cycle. What does that mean for welfare schemes?

- Archis Mohan

A feature of the flurry of elections in 2024, which included Lok Sabha elections and eight Assembly polls, was the slew of welfare schemes, including cash transfers for women that political parties of all ideological and spatial hues proposed. With only two Assembly polls, namely, to elect governments in Delhi and Bihar, 2025 will have the least number of elections for any year of the current five-year electoral cycle.

There are already indications that the pause has given at least some state governments much-needed room for manoeuvre to cut down on some of the subsidies, such as free power. They have taken to defend their decisions by pointing out that their governments were continuing with the cash transfers and free bus travel for women.

The run up to the forthcoming Assembly polls in Delhi, slated to be held by mid-February, may have triggered another round of promises of welfare schemes, such as a ₹18,000 monthly allowance for priests and ₹2,100 monthly cash transfers for women. But the first week of the New Year indicates that some of the state governments, burdened by the pressure on their finances because of cash transfers and other similar promises, believe it is time to restrain in disbursing freebies. In the last few weeks, Himachal Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh have moved to reduce power subsidies, while Karnataka has increased the fares of state transport buses.

Electricity in Himachal

On January 1, Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister (CM) Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu relinquished the subsidy on all five power connections registered in his name. He urged the state's welloff residents, particularly those with multiple electricity connections, since they receive the 125 units of free electricity subsidy on each of these meters, to follow his lead.