In poll year, the interim budget’s four poles

New Delhi: Women, youth, farmers, and the poor.
The political thrust of the interim budget by Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Thursday was explicitly targeted at these four key demographics, or castes, first identified by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in November as a response to the Opposition’s demand for a nationwide caste census.
The finance minister listed a raft of measures that form the core of the Centre’s outreach towards these social groups, and promised some additional schemes that aimed at meeting their social and economic aspirations.
Exuding confidence about a third term in this year’s general elections, the finance minister doubled down on welfare and repeatedly highlighted how the government’s economic philosophy had delivered on prosperity and empowerment – the likely contours of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) poll pitch in a few months.
The government office also underlined its commitment to ideological concerns and its core vote bank by announcing the formation of a high-powered committee to make recommendations to address challenges posed by “fast population growth and demographic changes’’.
It again underlined its social justice and secular credentials, contrasting its philosophy of inclusive and transparent development for all segments of society with the approach of previous governments, which it termed as nepotism (bhai-bhatijavad). “Previously, social justice was mostly a political slogan. For our government, social justice is an effective and necessary governance model. The saturation approach of covering all eligible people is the true and comprehensive achievement of social justice. This is secularism in action, reduces corruption, and prevents nepotism,” she said.
And it specifically mentioned that in the full budget to be presented in July, the development of eastern India will be a key focus area. This is crucial given that the eastern seaboard and states such as Odisha and West Bengal have, to an extent, resisted the BJP’s poll inroads, preferring rooted regional parties. Already at saturation in the Gangetic plains, the party appeared to be looking to the east for the next stage of expansion.
But the encompassing theme of the political outreach of the budget was the “four castes” which will be crucial if the party wants to better its 2019 tally of 303 Lok Sabha seats, offset anti-incumbency, and blunt the Opposition’s efforts at making contests more local and hive off a chunk of marginalised caste vote.
The party attributes its impressive wins in the three heartland states of Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh in December to the support from these groups, particularly women. The reason, the party feels, is its bouquet of social schemes aimed at improving access to clean fuel, food, education, health care and housing.
“As our prime minister firmly believes, we need to focus on four major castes. They are, garib (poor), mahilayen (women), yuva (youth) and annadata (farmer). Their needs, their aspirations, and their welfare are our highest priority. The country progresses, when they progress…” the FM said.
Each group was addressed separately in the 58-minute speech.
The FM made a pointed reference to the empowerment of women through entrepreneurship, ease of living, and dignity.
In addition to economic incentives and avenues, such as the 300 million Mudra Yojana loans given to entrepreneurs and the increasing participation of women in the workforce, the FM also reflected on how policy interventions shaped their social mobility and well-being.
“Making triple talaq illegal, reservation of one-third seats for women in the Lok Sabha and state legislative assemblies and giving over 70% houses under PM Awas Yojana in rural areas to women as sole or joint owners have enhanced their dignity,” she said.
While women voter turnout has shown a steady increase in state as well as general elections, women voters are expected to outnumber men in future polls. As per a recent report by the State Bank of India, women voters could be at 49% in the general elections, the highest-ever. The BJP’s 2019 victory was also attributed to the large-scale support of women, gained from fine-tuning the welfare pipeline, creating programmes tailored at women, and helping augment their incomes.
Sitharaman said that 8.3 million self-help groups with 90 million women are transforming the rural socio-economic landscape. “Their success has assisted nearly one crore women to become Lakhpati Didi already…Buoyed by the success, it has been decided to enhance the target for Lakhpati Didi from 2 crore to 3 crore.”
In many of these Lakhpati Didi meetings, women from rural groups interact virtually with the PM, helping expand outreach between the key demographic and the BJP’s biggest vote-catcher.
The second group, farmers, have been wooed with subsidies in fertilisers, seeds and soil testing facilities to enhance production, as well as monetary benefits under the PM Kisan Nidhi, which puts ₹6,000 in their hands annually. The scheme was announced in the interim budget in 2019 and is credited with helping douse rural anger that had singed the BJP in state elections in 2018.
Listing the interventions for this group, the FM said money under the PM-Kisan Samman Yojana is provided to 118 million marginal and small farmers and crop insurance is given to 40 million farmers under PM Fasal Bima Yojana.
To ensure faster growth of the agriculture sector, the Union minister said that the government will further promote private and public investment in post-harvest activities, including aggregation, modern storage, efficient supply chains, primary and secondary processing and marketing and branding.
She added that the move will also formulate a strategy to achieve self-reliance for oil seeds such as mustard, groundnut, sesame, soybean, and sunflower. “This will cover research for high-yielding varieties, widespread adoption of modern farming techniques, market linkages, procurement, value addition, and crop insurance,” she said.
Even as the government considers setting up of the Electronic National Agriculture Market or e-mandis for providing services to 18 million farmers, and farmer-centric policies to supplement incomes, the party cadre has relayed concerns about distress in the farming sector. It was with an eye on not alienating this constituency that the government rolled back the three contentious farm laws in 2021, even as it defended the legislation passed in Parliament as pro-farmers.
Total allocation to the department of agriculture and farmers welfare is ₹1.17 lakh crore .
For the young, a demographic the government wants to leverage and often calls the Amrit Peedhi (a reference to the period leading up to 2047 being called Amrit Kaal), the government has revamped the education policy, sharpened its skill development programmes to make them employable and created an enabling environment for growth, the FM said.
“Our prosperity depends on adequately equipping and empowering the youth. The National Education Policy 2020 is ushering in transformational reforms…The Skill India Mission has trained 1.4 crore youth, upskilled and reskilled 54 lakh youth, and established 3,000 ITIs. A large number of institutions of higher learning, namely 7 IITs, 16 IIITs, 7 IIMs, 15 AIIMS and 390 universities have been set up.”
While the opposition parties have targeted the government for failing to provide earning opportunities and jobs, accusing it of failing to meet the promise of providing two crore jobs; the FM asserted that schemes such as the PM Mudra Yojana has sanctioned 430 million loans aggregating to ₹22.5 lakh crore for entrepreneurial aspirations of the youth. “…Besides that, Fund of Funds, Start Up India, and Start Up Credit Guarantee schemes are assisting our youth. They are also becoming rozgardata (income generators).”
The FM also made a reference to the fillip provided to sports by mentioning the “highest ever medal tally in Asian Games and Asian Para Games in 2023” and pointed out that the number of chess grandmasters had jumped from 20 in 2010 to 80.
Since it came to power in 2014 with a majority, the BJP says it has worked towards poverty alleviation and economic empowerment through enhanced budgetary outlays, changes in the taxation policy and transparent governance, which has benefitted all irrespective of caste or faith.
For the economically deprived sections or the fourth caste — the poor — the FM said in the past 10 years, the government pulled 250 million people out of poverty, a reference to data released on multidimensional poverty, a metric that measures poverty based on access to basic services. “Our government’s efforts are now getting synergised with the energy and passion of such empowered people. This is truly elevating them from poverty….” she said.
The government, she said, transferred ₹34 lakh crore through Direct Benefit Transfer or DBT using PM-Jan Dhan accounts, leading to savings of ₹2.7 lakh crore. “We believe in empowering the poor. The earlier approach of tackling poverty through entitlements had resulted in very modest outcomes…,” she said.
While the minister underlined the government’s intent to improve the future of the “four castes” through enhanced spending and policy decisions, her speech also made a mention of an ideological concern, India’s burgeoning population.
“The government will form a high-powered committee for extensive consideration of the challenges arising from fast population growth and demographic changes,” she said, adding that the panel will be mandated to make recommendations for addressing these challenges comprehensively in relation to the goal of “Viksit Bharat”, or developed India.
The BJP’s ideological fount, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, has pushed for a uniform population policy for all castes, groups and faiths in the country.
The challenges and concerns of a growing population were also underscored by PM Modi in his Independence Day address in 2019. “Time has now come that we should take challenges head-on. Sometimes decisions are taken keeping in mind political advantage, but they come at the cost of growth of the future generation of our country. I would like to highlight the issue of population explosion in one Country…” he said from the ramparts of the Red Fort.