Farm issues and health sector on top of Ashok Gehlot govt’s agenda

After ousting the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the elections held last December, the Ashok Gehlot-led Congress government in Rajasthan began its stint on a shaky ground and with a wafer-thin majority.

In the 200-member assembly, the Congress won 99 seats and its ally, the Rashtriya Janata Dal, won one, while the BJP bagged 73. Election in one seat was countermanded due to the death of a candidate.

Gehlot, 68, slowly worked towards building a stable majority. The Congress won the seat where election was scrapped, taking the party’s tally to 100. Then he managed to bring six Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) legislators in the Congress fold, bolstering his government.

But experts say while some progress has been made on the work front, more could have been done. According to the CM himself, the government has fulfilled 119 out of 503 promises made in the party’s election manifesto. “This is 24% success,” Gehlot said at a press conference on Tuesday. “Another 42% promises are work in progress,” he added.

Notwithstanding murmurs of differences with Congress state president and deputy CM Sachin Pilot and Gehlot, the government partially rolled out a farm loan waiver plan and launched an unemployment allowance, the two major promises in the Congress’s manifesto.

The farm loan waiver has been partial because loans from nationalised banks are yet to be waived. The Opposition, including former CM Vasundhara Raje, has targeted the government for falling short of its promise of a full waiver. The government has so far waived Rs 8,000 crore of two million farmers.

On Tuesday, Gehlot announced Rs 1,000 crore for a farmers’ welfare fund and 5% interest subsidy to loyal customers of Rajasthan State Cooperative Land Development Banks.

Experts also point to the government’s focus on the health sector. The government expanded the scope of a free medicine scheme to include 104 new medicines and integrated the Centre’s flagship Ayushman Bharat with the state’s Bhamashah Swasthya Bima Yojana (BSBY). Fifteen new medical colleges have been announced, and existing medical colleges got 950 new postgraduate seats.

The government has also rolled out a policy for micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME), though industry experts say the effects are yet to be seen.Gehlot also kept his promise of removing the minimum education qualification as an eligibility norm for contesting panchayat elections.

In the next four years, the biggest challenge for the Gehlot-led government is to get its finances in order. “The Centre owes us Rs 11,000 crore as of now. It is hell-bent on destroying the states,” Gehlot said on Tuesday, hitting out at the Union government.

But state BJP president Satish Poonia contended the first year of the Congress rule has ruined Rajasthan. He alleged that there was a sharp rise in crimes, and no development work was done.

“The government is running at the mercy of the God. The achievements projected by the government and the ground reality are far from truth. The government itself is examining its work. So, we have presented 52 charges against the government, which we will take to the people,” Poonia said at a press conference.

He said the Congress government either “stalled” the schemes run by the previous BJP government or started running them with some other names.

Political expert Narayan Bareth agrees the government could have done better on several fronts. “There has been a problem with the party organisation...The government is also struggling on the fronts of crimes against women and Dalit atrocities,” he said.