Riding on polarisation, why Himanta Sarma eyes cash sops, infra push as poll game changer | Political Pulse News

Looking for a second straight term, Sarma has been inaugurating newly completed projects – such as a new flyover in Guwahati or a six-lane bridge over the Brahmaputra connecting Guwahati and North Guwahati – ahead of the polls, even as the government’s beneficiary schemes also appear to have turned into a political spectacle in the state.

Sarma has been travelling from district to district, addressing mega programmes attended by large numbers of scheme beneficiaries, whom he addresses as his mothers, sisters, bhagin (nephews) and bhagini (nieces), at events that resemble campaign rallies.

This peaked on Tuesday, when the Sarma dispensation announced “the biggest-ever single-day direct benefit transfer (DBT) in the state”, distributing Rs 3,600 crore to around 40 lakh women beneficiaries of the flagship Orunodoi scheme.

Launched in 2020, the Orunodoi scheme enables a monthly DBT to women beneficiaries from “economically weaker sections”. While it began with a monthly amount of Rs 830 for around 18 lakh women, it has grown over the years to Rs 1,250 per month with the number of beneficiaries steadily increasing.

The amount of Rs 9,000 for each woman beneficiary under this scheme, distributed Tuesday, combined the aid due for four months — the regular payouts have been suspended during the pre-election months — and an additional Rs 4,000, packaged as a “Bihu gift” for Sarma’s “mothers and sisters”.

While this programme was the largest in scale, the BJP government is rolling out a bouquet of such assistance schemes to various social groups. While Orunodoi is meant for women running households, the state government launched the Nijut Moina scheme in 2024 to provide monthly assistance to girl students from higher secondary to the postgraduate level, with the aim of encouraging higher education and delaying marriage.

Last October, the aid under the second phase of this programme was distributed to over 3.5 lakh beneficiaries.

In view of perceived resentment among young men that they were being “forsaken”, the Sarma government came up with the Nijut Babu Asoni scheme for them, which provides monthly handout of Rs 2,000 to eligible male postgraduate students and Rs 1,000 to eligible male undergraduate students, subject to a household income cap of Rs 4 lakh per year. This was started last month for 47,395 first-year undergraduate and postgraduate students.

Other such programmes include the Jibon Prerona scheme, launched in October, which provides Rs 2,500 per month for a year to fresh graduates graduating from government universities and colleges in Assam; a one-time grant of Rs 25,000 to research scholars of state and central government universities; and a one-time aid of Rs 50,000 to each of the 6.8 lakh existing casual and permanent tea garden workers in the state.

Add to this over 28.5 lakh women approved as beneficiaries of the Mukhya Mantri Udyamita Abhiyaan – which is supposed to provide seed capital of up to Rs. 85,000 over three years for entrepreneurship to women in self-help groups – and the Chief Minister’s Atmanirbhar Asom Abhijan, with about one lakh beneficiaries, which is meant for extending financial assistance and training to young entrepreneurs.

The Opposition has sought to criticise a slew of such DBT schemes as a “ploy” to garner votes at the cost of “real development”. The BJP, however, hopes that they would pay dividends, with a scheme along the lines of the Mukhya Mantri Udyamita Abhiyaan in Bihar – called Mukhya Mantri Mahila Rozgar Yojana, which some NDA leaders have credited Sarma for — being seen as one of the reasons for the alliance’s sweep in the Assembly elections in that state last November.

Sarma has also warned beneficiaries about the fallout of the BJP being voted out in the polls, saying rhetorically: “Imagine if one day Orunodoi suddenly stops?”