Governments roll out welfare schemes with the stated objective of extending various benefits to those who are in need of them. During the time of elections, this tends to raise speculation about the potential impact of these schemes on voting behaviour. The assumption ordinarily is that proper implementation of these schemes contributes to voter’s satisfaction while leakages and gaps generate discontent. The post-poll survey by Lokniti-CSDS in Madhya Pradesh provides a sense of the way beneficiaries of Central and State government welfare schemes voted in the Assembly election.
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While the BJP polled an overall 48.5% votes in the election, beneficiaries of Central government schemes voted in a little larger proportion in favour of the BJP. In particular, the BJP benefited extra from the beneficiaries of the PM Awas Yojana. However, this scheme reportedly benefited only less than three in 10 respondents. Our survey shows that the Ujjwala Yojana most extensively benefited the voters, with almost six in 10 reporting having benefited from it. The Central government’s health insurance scheme, Ayushman Bharat Yojana, benefited nearly half the voters (49%) of Madhya Pradesh. Half of these beneficiaries voted for the BJP (Table 1).
Beneficiaries of the Madhya Pradesh government schemes also behaved similarly. Among the beneficiaries of the Mukhyamantri Kaushal Samvardhan Yojana, a skill-development scheme, 58% voted for the BJP compared with 33% who chose the Congress, but only 12% reported having benefited from it. Likewise, 57% of those who made use of the State housing scheme, Mukhyamantri Awas Yojana, voted for BJP — with less than one in four reporting having benefited from it (Table 2).
The decision of majority of the beneficiaries of Central and State welfare schemes to vote for the BJP significantly helped the party return to power in Madhya Pradesh. This factor becomes crucial particularly in view of the fact that Congress did benefit rather considerably among non-beneficiaries of various schemes (Table 3). But it is important to remember that the advantage the BJP garnered on account of welfare schemes and their benefits to voters is not huge and only marginally accounts for its victory. The same is true of the much discussed Ladli Behna Yojana which — as we discuss separately in the piece on women vote — did not make any extra-ordinary addition to BJP vote share among women, contrary to the general belief.
Abhinav P. Borbora is researcher at Lokniti-CSDS and Dr. Manish Gyani is a research fellow at the MPISSR, Ujjain, Madhya Pradesh