Articles
Are Chief Ministers Monarchs?
Dt: 19/8/21
Are Chief Ministers Monarchs?
Dr T H Chowdary*
A bye-election is imminent in a constituency for the State Legislature. The Chief Minister announces a Dalit Bandhu programme, goes to a village in the constituency and effects direct bank transfer (DBT) of Rs. 10 lakhs to the accounts of all the seventy one Dalit families in the village and says the scheme will be implemented in all villages in the State ! This is touted as a welfare measure for the Dalits - not in the party manifesto, not a cabinet decision, no provision in the budget passed by the Legislature ! A few days later, the Sonia Congress leader holds a demonstration demanding Muslim Bandhu scheme.
2. In another state, the Chief Minister has in a period of 27 months effected DBT of about Rs.45,000cr on a number of “welfare” schemes, every one of them named after himself or his late father who was Chief Minister of the state for about six years. Almost all this money was from borrowings ; swelling the state’s debt. The amount every “poor” family gets is sufficient to feed and clothe and enjoy without doing any paid work. The welfare PDS rations and pensions are delivered at the homes of the beneficiaries through an army of a few lakh Gram Sevaks , each paid Rs. 8000 p.m. For carrying the rations, delivery vans were purchased for the purpose.
3. A person from the state wins a bronze medal in Olympics, the CM announced a Rs.35 lakhs reward; another wins a Silver medal; the CM of the person’s state announces Rs. 1 crore as reward. Some people died when a tractor overloaded with scores of persons were transported. The families of the dead persons are given Rs. 10 lakhs each.
4. In one state farmers, are given free electricity; so are poor; rajaks ( washermen) and kshuraks (barbers) and weavers etc. The Discoms ( electricity distribution companies, state-owned) are in debt of lakhs of crores of rupees. “Poor” brides are given Rs. 1/- lakh as Shaadi Mubarak / Kalyanamastu. Lakhs of women in self-help groups ( SHGs) are given Rs. 10,000 each ( over 80 lakhs of them in AP). The gift is named after the Chief Minister’s persons few months before elections… Lakhs of sheep and milch buffaloes are distributed at about 10 to 20% of the price they are purchased by the state.
5. In one state while the outgoing Chief Minister launched three caste-designated state- owned Welfare Corporations, the successor C.M of the victorious party launched more than forty caste-designated, state-owned Welfare Corporations and nominated 173 persons as Chairmen and Directors.
6. A pay revision committee of the government recommends 7.5% increase but the Chief Minister decides to increase it by 30% ! Is this not joint loot of public money? Government is already over-staffed (except among teachers) but the Chief Minister wants to recruit another 50-60,000 persons as government servants, governments don’t create wealth; they should be for facilitation and regulation.
7. Numerous are such charities distributed by the will of the Chief Ministers, all from borrowed funds, sinking the state in ever deeper well of debt .
8. What do the Chief Ministers of charity say? “The central government is not giving money” as though theirs is the right to spend and the Center’s duty is to fund ! The populist charity is the special characteristic of all regional parties in their hunt for votes. The wealth declared by most MLA’s and MPs who win successive elections as declared by themselves to the electoral officers by affidavit, is two to five times the previous.
9. The voting multitudes are kept in painless poverty through increasing charity from the State’s borrowed money. Their numbers increase; the numbers of the well-to-do ( the so called forward castes) decrease while their wealth increases, due to good education, businesses and well -paying professions . The poor’s misery is mitigated by state-bestowed charity which extends to provision of house, rations, education of a sort (fee reimbursement )and some free health care ( Arogya Sri; Ayushman etc., schemes) .
10. The emerging outcomes are: GDP and per capita income increase; but the rich characterized with one or two only children become richer and the poor become less poor; the inequality increases; as the population of the non-rich increases and lack of quality education among them detracts from employability, the unemployed will swell and clamour for dole; they will be obliged to some extent by vote-mongering and power-seeking ( to become wealthy) politicians. The unemployment becomes so vulgar as for instance 100 engineering graduates ( among 5000 applicants) for 8 posts of morgue assistants, minimum qualification of 8th standard in 2021 in Calcutta and more than 5,00,000 persons among whom were tens of thousands of graduates, engineers, Ph.Ds applied for 100 posts of peons in Lucknow Secretariat in 2015.
11. Unless the population growth is arrested down and political parties are regulated (like telecoms, electricity, insurance, companies etc.) demagogues will bring democracy into disrepute Chief Ministers will become proprietors of parties, monarchs of states and dynastic rulers and India becoming a great power and nation will remain a tantalizing slogan. (845 words)
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