Amidst a series of corruption allegations against the leaders of the ruling party in West Bengal and with many of prominent leaders getting imprisoned by the Enforcement Directorate and Central Bureau of Investigation, the Trinamool Congress on April 20 launched an outreach initiative called ‘Trinamoole Nabo Jowar (New tide in TMC)’.
Didir Suraksha Kawach to Trinamoole Nabo Jowar
Trinamoole Nabo Jowar is a 3,500 km Jono Sanjog Yatra by Abhishek Banerjee over 60 days, connecting North Bengal’s Cooch Behar to South Bengal’s Kakdwip. This comes after the launch of Didir Suraksha Kawach, another outreach programme to monitor the implementation of social security schemes and address public grievances. The TMC, founded by Mamata Banerjee, has earned a reputation as a party where the supreme leader’s choice is considered definitive. The TMC is consistently accused by opposition parties of lacking internal democracy.
As a result, introducing a campaign like Trinamoole Nabo Jowar is a significant development in state politics. This effort hopes to select the best possible group of public representatives by holding internal elections using a secret ballot. In the upcoming panchayat elections, the winners are expected to receive the TMC’s nomination. The party will first hold sessions in each district to conduct a referendum. To get rid of the horrors of the 2018 panchayat elections marred with violence and rigging, the TMC wants to conduct this panchayat election in a democratic manner. The new campaign might be interpreted as an effort to refute the claims made about Abhishek, that he was inaccessible and restricted to his Camac Street clique.
Basic needs approach to social security
In recent times, social security schemes have become almost synonymous with a certain political leader enabling their political party to reap the benefits of the desired electoral outcome. Social security schemes are meant to provide mechanisms for securing people from identified social risks like old age, sickness, unemployment, birth, death or marriage by direct government intervention, according to the ILO Convention of 1952. State-sponsored social protection measures are not a new concept; traces of them can be found in Kautilya’s Arthashastra, where the Mauryan empire established welfare activities for the elderly, orphans and other vulnerable groups. Today, no modern government can disregard welfare measures in its budget, especially in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis. In a basic needs approach to social security, it is believed that greater welfare will facilitate economic development. Thus, universal social allowances are provided from government funds.
Apart from the corruption allegations, the current government is also known for its social security schemes like Kanyashree, Swasthya Sathi or Lakshmir Bhandar, which ultimately gave them a historic mandate in the 2021 assembly elections. The scheme of Kanyashree was even recognised by the United Nations for public service; it provides a conditional cash transfer of Rs 1,000 annually and one-time Rs 25,000 for adolescent girls upon completing higher secondary education.
Even the previous Left government had implemented a number of welfare measures, but it was only during this administration that the activities were developed as a brand. The most famous schemes of the government include Lakshmir Bhandar, which provides a universal basic income guarantee of Rs 500 or 1,000 to woman residents of West Bengal; Krishak Bandhu, which provides financial assistance of Rs 10,000 to farmers with one acre or more of cultivable land; the Student Credit Card scheme which provides collateral-free loans up to Rs 10 lakh to support students pursuing secondary or higher education; and Swasthya Sathi, which provides universal health insurance cover up to Rs 5 lakh per annum for each family living in West Bengal.
Implementation of schemes and burden on government expenditure
Although the government has implemented a number of welfare measures, their success will largely depend on whether they reach marginalised populations. Both the government’s policy and execution are continuously being criticised by the opposition and civil society. Different government stakeholders have allegedly engaged in bribery, or “cut money“ as it is sometimes known.
Conversely, opposition parties claim that these activities add to the state’s financial burden. Supporters of the ruling dispensation respond by claiming that even with these social welfare schemes, the debt as a percentage of the gross state domestic product (GSDP) has decreased from 40.65 in FY 2010–11 to 37.05 in FY 2020–21. Additionally, the fiscal deficit as a percentage of the gross state domestic product (GSDP) has dropped from 4.24 in FY 2010–11 to 3.43 in FY 2020–21.
Seeking democratic responsiveness to overcome the challenge of panchayat
Like the theory of basic needs, another limb of social security is the process of democratic responsiveness. It occurs when the democratic process induces the government to form and implement policies.
The TMC is in a very uncomfortable state after the disclosure of the job recruitment scandal and several of its top leaders getting jailed. To combat anti-incumbency and any possibility of inner-party rivalry, the TMC is looking for a democratic mandate within the party itself at its grassroots levels.
The party is also looking for new faces in the rural body who are established persons in different fields of society. The current programmes of the party, whether Didir Suraksha Kawach or Trinamoole Nabo Jowar, revolve primarily around hearing the grievances of the public and implementing the delivery of government schemes without any unwelcome intermediary.
Why social security?
Even though there are endless discussions about governance models, it strikes apparent that social security measures have dominated electioneering. When the government was implicated in claims of many employment scams, coal smuggling, etc., the ruling TMC used these schemes to retaliate against the opposition. This shows the ruling party’s under-confidence in other developmental initiatives apart from welfare. The opposition is not shielded from this either. Additionally, they cannot denounce these schemes completely. Sukanta Majumdar, state president of the BJP and a member of parliament, continued by saying that if the BJP were to win power, the Lakshmir Bhandar scheme would be replaced with a monthly payment of Rs 2,000 rather than Rs 500.
Lately, the BJP has realised the mistake of the Left and that completely rejecting welfare measures can harm them when it comes to poor and middle-class voters. According to the Lokniti CSDS study on the state assembly elections in 2021, TMC outperformed BJP among lower-class and poor voters by 16% and 14%, respectively. With regard to middle-class voters, the margin was dropped to 7%, while the BJP was ahead by 3% of the rich electorate. This demonstrates the significant impact of class on voting behaviour, which is often overlooked in discussions of caste or religion.
Social security measures undoubtedly played a crucial role in this regard. Since no political party would prefer to ignore this sizeable segment of the population, the political conversation on welfare measures would only intensify as the panchayat elections approach. It will be interesting to observe how these measures perform in the elections. The bloody history of Bengal panchayat elections is well known, but it will be intriguing to see whether welfare and outreach schemes help the ruling party to handle mounting anti-incumbency, and whether the BJP will be able to hold its ground since the vote share of the Left-Congress has increased in last by-elections.
Spandan Roy Basunia is a graduate student, WBNUJS, Kolkata and Sumanta Roy is a PhD scholar, Centre of Social Medicine and Community Health, JNU, New Delhi.
