Sunil Gatade
With Lok Sabha polls less than a year away, Congress has brought out the Food Security Bill like a magician pulling a rabbit out of his hat.
As a variety of scams and scandals has hit the UPA-II regime, the Grand Old Party has been desperately searching for an issue that could clinch the 2014 Parliament election for it.
It is certainly not an out of the box thinking, but the ruling party was badly in need of an idea through which it can approach people, especially those who vote. The Rs 70,000 crore farm loan waiver had done the trick for the Congress in the last Lok Sabha polls as it raised its tally substantially and even crossed the 200 mark in the 543-member House.
Party chief Sonia Gandhi is believing that by promising cheap foodgrains to the poor, she can revive the “garibi hatao”magic of Indira Gandhi in the 1971 polls, projecting the party as the Messiah of the 82 crore poor Sonia’s äam aadmi” plank in 2004 had worked wonders by ousting the BJP-led NDA from power when the BJP had become overconfident over its Ïndia shining” campaign.
The Bill has got international attention with commentators seeing it is a major move forward in the fight against hunger and malnutrition. It aims to guarantee very cheap food grains to almost 70 per cent of India’s 1.2 billion population.It is a unique feat and is being praised even by UN officials who say that the ambitious move could inspire many countries to do the same thing.
Despite facing difficulties, Policymakers went for the measure after being convinced over the argument as to how can India be among the world’s fastest growing economies and yet have one of the worst hunger and malnutrition levels?
The real question is not whether India can afford to have a right to food but as the Food Minister K V Thomas said in a recent interview, “Can we afford not to?”
As a commentator put it :Nowhere on the planet, nowhere in mankind’s history has such an idea taken the concrete shape in form of a law.
Nowhere at such a large extent has any government taken up responsibility of providing food almost for free. The national food security bill ordinance passed on Thursday by the government has done something impossible for any rational economist to even conceive
According to estimate of the government, “The total estimated annual foodgrains requirement is 612.3 lakh tonnes and corresponding estimated food subsidy for the bill at 2013-14 costs is about Rs.1,24,724 crore.”.
Looking at it from the political perspective, it must be remembered that Congress has latched on to the issue at a time when controversial Gujarat Chief Ministeter Narendra Modi is gaining centrestage after his anointment as the BJP campaign committee chief. It is a matter of time before Modi is made the PM candidate by the BJP.
The opposition party is trying to make the 2014 Lok Sabha battle between those for and against Modi.
To counter the BJP, Congress strategy is simple. Project Modi as a divisive figure out to stir trouble for the minorities and show the Congress in an inclusive garb going out of the way to help the poora good Samaritan in the 21st century in the world’s largest democracy-.
That is why Gandhi has held a meeting of Congress Chief Ministers to boost plans for a quick and efficient rollout of the Food Security bill. She wants the 14 Congress ruled states to take a march over other non-Congress states in the implementation of the measure.
Party spokespersons are fanning out in different states to emphasise the significance and importance of the Food Security Bill, the pet project of Sonia Gandhi.
With the party in the government for most of the years since independence, the 127-year old organization has virtually turned into an election winning machinery and has got the knack to know as to what issue will click and what will turn a flop.
But, it is difficult to predict whether the Congress will hit the bull’s eye this time as Modi could turn out to be a different cup of tea with a section of party managers conceding that the controversial BJP leader is an ideological and managerial challenge.
For Congress, there could be slip between the cup and the lip if it failed to ensure an urgent rollout of the scheme. Even party managers admit that unless people started getting cheap foodgrains at least three months before the Lok Sabha polls, it is difficult to reap an electoral dividend.
The realization about the care being taken by the government cannot come if there is a faulty rollout or if there are glitches in the implementation of the mammoth scheme.
Though Congress has put the best foot forward, the fact of the matter is that the UPA-II rule left much to be desired. People have been increasingly fed up with the rising prices coupled with corruption. It was also afflicted by what has come to be known as policy paralysis syndrome.
As the UPA-II tenure began, the Congress lost the plot in the midst of growing scams and scandals and has failed to gain the initiative. It has not been able to resurrect the economy and put it back again to a high growth path despite an economist-Prime Minister at the helm.
While the Congress and the Government has set out an ambitious task in the slog overs in matters economic and in reaching out to the poor, it remains to be seen as to how it would actually perform.
While Sonia Gandhi has become alive to the task ahead, an electoral hattrick would literally require a tall performance when opposition is leaving no effort to end its bad patch.
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