Lok Sabha Elections 2024 | Little cheer in Congress over impact of 'guarantees' in Karnataka

Bengaluru: The ‘guarantee’ schemes, which formed the fulcrum of the Congress’ Lok Sabha campaign in Karnataka, have failed to deliver enough seats to the party.

For Congress, after having convincingly won the Assembly polls last year, Karnataka was the first state where it put its 'guarantee' model into action.

The five guarantees - Gruha Jyoti, Gruha Lakshmi, Anna Bhagya, Shakti and Yuva Nidhi - have 5.10 crore beneficiaries. The schemes cost the exchequer Rs 36,000 crore in 2023-24. This fiscal, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has set aside Rs 52,009 crore for the schemes.

Many of the 'guarantee' beneficiaries are women, who became the Congress' electoral target group for the Lok Sabha polls. Congress, according to its poll managers, expected a swing of 10-15 per cent in women votes.

"We need to analyse if the guarantees have worked or not," Siddaramaiah said, after Congress won nine out of 28 Lok Sabha seats in the state. "It looks like the guarantees worked to an extent."

Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar, who is also the Karnataka Congress president, said he expected his party to win more seats because of the 'guarantee' schemes. "We will analyse what went wrong seat-by-seat," he said. "We expected votes in exchange for the work we've done. That didn't happen."

Shivakumar was unsure as to what extent the guarantees worked electorally. "I won't say guarantees didn't work. But some sections have shifted in the booths. We'll have to study it," he said.

Sources close to Siddaramaiah conceded that the the 'guarantee' schemes had no "decisive" impact on voters. "Otherwise, the intel was that Congress would win 12-15 seats," one person with direct knowledge of this said.

It is also said that the Lok Sabha results in Karnataka may prompt the Congress government to make the 'guarantee' schemes more targeted in terms of implementation. "Gruha Jyoti (free power up to 200 units), for example, is virtually available to all households. Instead, it should be made exclusive to only those who really need the benefit," a policymaker closely involved with the 'guarantee' schemes said.

Meanwhile, Shivakumar said there was nothing wrong with the Congress' choice of candidates in Karnataka. "We fielded first-class candidates. They'll be a big asset for the party. All candidates and workers did well," he said.

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