Assembly elections, now underway in five states, have once again exposed the narrow thinking of all political parties. They no longer fight elections on democratic, republican and secular principles. Instead, they try to bribe the voters by offering them what are known as freebies. Take the manifesto of any party from the BJP to the Congress to the Samajwadi Party to the Aam Aadmi Party, they promise goodies in the form of free electricity for irrigation, free two-wheelers, free laptops and mobile phones, one job per family and free pilgrimage to shrines of their choice.
While taking cognisance of a petition filed against the practice of political parties announcing freebies, the Supreme Court has said, the budget for implementing the freebies would be larger than the normal budget. Freebies are nothing but bribes. The election commission expects the parties to follow certain standard protocols while contesting elections. Freebies are certainly not part of such protocols. Yet, the commission has been unable to control the proclivity of the parties to entice the voters with freebies.
Alas, politics has been reduced to a give-and-take relationship between the voter and the party. True, there was a time when the leaders sought blood from the people by promising freedom. Taking part in such do-or-die battles, people even sacrificed their lives. Now, when crony capitalism thrives and everyone wants creature comforts more than anything else, the voters are attracted by, say, a free television receiver promised and delivered by the late Jayalalithaa in Tamil Nadu and 200 units of free electricity per month promised and given by the Aam Aadmi Party in Delhi.
Those who know Punjab know how free electricity for irrigation resulted in indiscriminate pumping out of ground water, with the ground water table falling lower and lower. When Chief Minister Nitish Kumar of Bihar distributed free bicycles among girl students, he knew that he was ensuring his own return to power. Now, in Uttar Pradesh, the BJP promises a brand new moped with free petrol for two years to any meritorious girl student. It was the ration kit that Pinarayi Vijayan government distributed among the people, irrespective of their purchasing power, that helped him to return to power. The free power and water that the AAP government provides in Delhi seems to have become a major attraction for the people in Punjab. In the process, the politician has been reduced to a bribe-giver and the voter to a bribe-receiver. Surely, this is not what the founding fathers of the Constitution had envisaged when they drafted its Preamble in lofty words.
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