Banking on suvidha: How state welfare schemes can help BJP win a third term

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Mamaji (as former chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan is known) did some excellent work, and his schemes, especially Ladli Behna Yojana, have reached everyone. So, the BJP government both in the state and Centre have together given the needy a lot of suvidha (facilities)." Over 2,000km away in Kaziranga, Assam, Rubika Ingtipi, 25, a vegetable seller from Karbi Anglong, echoes similar sentiments. “We get help under the (state government’s flagship) Orunodoi scheme, along with benefits from other welfare policies.

Roads have become much better. That is all we ask of any government. And that is why right now, I like Modi and BJP," she says.

Ruma Bhuiyan, a homemaker in her 40s, from Patharchuk village in the nearby Nagaon district, agrees. “We have got a lot of facilities and benefits from BJP, from Orunodoi to Ujjwala, houses with toilets to free rations. We don’t vote as per party affiliation but based on the work done.

Hence, we want Modi to be prime minister again," she says. Damore, Katara, Ingtipi and Bhuiyan epitomize how many people in BJP-ruled states perceive the party’s central and state-level initiatives. From Assam to Uttar Pradesh to Madhya Pradesh, the saffron party’s welfare pitch—from providing income support, housing and gas supply to electricity, free rations and better roads—remains strong and seems to be standing it in good stead.

As it seeks a third term in power at the centre, BJP is highlighting the success of this combination of schemes, which reflect Narendra Modi’s ‘double engine government’ pitch. Modi uses the term at every opportunity, including in the run-up to the ongoing Lok Sabha elections. For instance, addressing the Uttar Pradesh Global Investors’ Summit in Lucknow in February this