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₹1000 cash bonanza for Pongal, orders EPS; bribing voters, says DMK
The opposition DMK has criticised the populist scheme will cost the state exchequer over ₹2000 crore.
Ahead local bodies’ elections expected in December, Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami (EPS) on Tuesday announced a cash bonanza of ₹1000 for all ration card holders along with a gift hamper for Pongal festival and promptly drew flak from the opposition DMK which termed it as bribery.
“Along with ₹1000 cash, gift hampers, containing raw rice, jaggery, raisins, cashew nuts, cardamom and sugarcane will be given to all ration card holders before the Pongal festival,” the Chief Minister said, addressing a gathering after inaugurating the 34th revenue district of the state at Kallakurichi, 219 km from Chennai.
Kallakurichi was carved out of Villupuram district and an announcement to this effect was made by EPS in January this year.
The populist scheme will cost the state exchequer over ₹2000 crore, said a government official who did not want to be named.
There had been anticipation in official circles and in the ruling AIADMK that the government might announce this Pongal cash bonanza since elections to the civic bodies such as Corporations, Municipalities and Panchayats are on the anvil. The Supreme Court has directed the State Election Commission (SEC) to issue the notification for the poll schedule by the second week of December. The polls are being held for the first time in three years.
The DMK described the government’s decision as “bribing voters and egregious misuse of power.”
“With impending civic polls, the cash bonanza is nothing but bribing of voters which the AIADMK government is carrying out brazenly. It is the duty of the poll watch dog to prevent such egregious misuse of power. The DMK is educating the electorate on this as the voters could not be befooled by cash doles,” said RS Bharathi, MP and DMK Organising Secretary.
It is not the first time the government has announced a cash bonanza. EPS had introduced the Pongal cash along with the gift hamper last year and had said that the scheme would continue.
The freebie would cover nearly 1.85 crore ration card holders getting rice under the Public Distribution System and an additional 10 lakh ration card holders who might switch over from sugar to rice. According to official sources, around 40,000 family card holders using that only for the purpose of identity would not be eligible for this.
Only last week, the state government announced that ration card holders receiving sugar in lieu of rice could change it and the deadline for that has been extended till November 29. The four-day Pongal festival, celebrated across the state from January 13, is Tamil Nadu’s biggest festival.
Last year, the government’s cash bonanza for the Pongal festival to all ration card holders drew the ire of Madras High Court which restricted it to benefit only the Below the Poverty Line (BPL) segment. But, even before the Court could intervene many had availed the cash benefit. However, on a plea from the government, the court relaxed its stipulation and allowed family card holders getting sugar to avail the benefit. The opposition parties had then criticised the move saying that it was bribing the voters ahead of general elections using money from public exchequer.
