The Congress has now made a promise of providing 100 units of free electricity and 200 units at half tariff in Madhya Pradesh.
The announcement was made by state Congress chief and ex-chief minister Kamal Nath at a public meeting in Badnawar of Dhar district on Thursday.
This is the fourth major promise by the opposition Congress that is looking to come back to power in the state through assembly elections slated for the end of the year. The party has already made a promise of providing Rs 1500 monthly cash assistance to women, domestic gas cylinders for Rs 500 each and revival of the old pension scheme (OPS) for government employees.
Till now, Congress was talking about restarting the scheme of 100 units of power for Rs 100, which it introduced after coming to power in 2018. However, on Thursday, Kamal Nath made a bigger promise by promising 100 units of free power and 200 units at half cost.
It, however, remains unclear whether the 200 units at half tariff will be in addition to the 100 units of free electricity, or whether those using up to 200 units will pay half tariff. The new announcement has been given a catchy slogan in Hindi 'sau unit maaf; 200 unit half'.
Congress sources said that the fine-tuning of the announcement will be done and made clear soon. The party has also promised that it will restart the loan waiver scheme for farmers that was left halfway through when the Congress government collapsed in March 2020.
The recent results of the Karnataka elections in favour of Congress had announced five major welfare schemes in its election manifesto seems to have enthused the Madhya Pradesh unit of the party to expand its scope of poll guarantees. Congress won 135 of the 224 seats in the southern state, gaining a full majority.
In Karnataka the Congress poll guaranteed the Gruha Jyothi scheme, under which, 200 units of free electricity will be provided every month; the Gruha Lakshmi scheme to give Rs 2000 monthly to women head of households; the Uchita Prayana scheme to provide free bus travel to all women across the State; the Yuva Nidhi scheme of Rs 3,000 monthly allowance to unemployed graduates and Rs 1,500 to diploma holders and the Anna Bhagya scheme to provide free 10kg rice per person per month to BPL families.
The party has promised to implement all these schemes by approving them in the first cabinet meeting of the new government.
The BJP has announced several sops too
It’s actually raining sops and promises in poll-bound Madhya Pradesh almost every day, as the ruling BJP and opposition Congress are already engaged in a keen battle six months short of the assembly polls.
The Shivraj Chouhan-led BJP government in the state has already introduced an ambitious ‘Laadli Behna’ scheme that will provide Rs 1000 monthly cash assistance to married women between the ages of 23 and 60 years in the low-income group from June 10. About 1.25 crore women are likely to benefit from the scheme.
The government has also introduced an interest waiver scheme for farmers who have turned defaulters on farm loans and about 11 lakh farmers are likely beneficiaries. On Wednesday, the Chouhan government announced an ‘earn-learn’ scheme for youth that has the provision of monthly stipends between Rs 8000 to Rs 10,000 for unemployed youth along with skills training for them.
Apart from this, the BJP government is on a spree of developing religious places and promising temples and memorials for deities and idols of different communities in the state. Recently, the state cabinet decided to allow the priests to auction the government land associated with temples, though the money collected is to go to the temple fund.
