Jagan rechristens Andhra's populist schemes after self, father

What’s in a name? A rose by any other name would smell as sweet. Well, try telling that to political parties in Andhra Pradesh.

For them, it’s all in the name. Eager to perpetuate their legacies, the parties in the state treat the welfare schemes as effective tools for political messaging, more so when they carry the names of their supreme leaders.

No wonder that the new government, headed by YSR Congress Party supremo Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy, is now on a rechristening spree. All the welfare schemes are being rebranded and renamed.

Two education schemes unveiled by the government have been named after Jagan himself while nine other programmes are named after his father and former Congress chief minister of the combined Andhra Pradesh YS Rajasekhara Reddy.

A tag that matters

Jagananna Amma Vodi (mother’s lap) is a programme under which an annual financial assistance of ₹15,000 is given to all mothers from poor families who send their children to schools up to 12th standard. It is claimed that the scheme would benefit nearly 43 lakh students.

Jagananna Vidya Deevena (blessing of education) is a fee reimbursement scheme, providing financial support of ₹20,000 per annum to college students belonging to the SC, ST, OBC, minorities, Kapu, EBC and differently abled categories. The scheme is expected to benefit 15 lakh students.

In the 2019-20 annual budget presented by the Finance Minister B Rajendranath Reddy last week, as many as nine welfare and development schemes were named after YSR who had steered the Congress to power for two successive terms in 2004 and 2009 and was largely credited for the Andhra Pradesh unit’s highest contribution of MPs to the UPA’s kitty.

In fact, the YSRCP fought the April 11 Assembly elections on the plank of welfarism, promising to usher in what it calls “Rajanna Rajyam”, a reference to the welfare-focused regime of YSR.

Political branding

Distributing freebies has been the most preferred way to win the hearts of voters in Andhra Pradesh. The political branding of welfare schemes is a time-tested phenomenon.

During the previous Telugu Desam Party (TDP) regime, every major welfare scheme was named after Chandrababu Naidu or his father-in-law and the party’s founder N T Rama Rao. While NTR’s name was preferred in the initial stages, the latter part of Naidu’s rule saw more aggressive self-promotion with several programmes carrying his tag.

To name a few: Chandranna Bima Yojana, Chandranna Sankranti Kanuka, Chandranna Kapu Bhavan, Chandranna Ramzan taufa and Chandranna Christmas Kanuka. The idea was to position Naidu as a pro-poor leader who cares for all sections of the society.

With the change of guard in the state, Naidu’s name has been removed from all welfare schemes.

By earmarking ₹32,618 crore for education, accounting for 14.31 per cent of the total budget, Jagan wants to leave a distinct mark on this key sector. This is 34 per cent higher than the allocation made in the previous financial year.

However, TDP’s general secretary and Chandrababu Naidu’s son Nara Lokesh took potshots at the Chief Minister, tweeting that while Jagan might feel happy about prefixing his name, he should answer why half the mothers in the state have been left out of the scheme.

YSR gets a pride of place

The new government has named several institutions after YSR.  YSR Agriculture Labs, which will conduct free soil testing for farmers, set up with an outlay of ₹109 core, and YSR Tribal Medical University are some of new institutes to come up in the state this year.

In order to perpetuate the memory of YSR, the government has also named several schemes after him. Prominent among them is YSR Rythu Bharosa aimed at providing an annual investment subsidy of ₹12,500 to each farmer. This will help 64 lakh famers, including 17 lakh tenant cultivators.

Similarly, YSR Fasal Bheema Yojana, an insurance scheme to benefit nearly 60 lakh farmers, YSR Gruha Scheme for affordable housing to all, YSR Grants for undertaking repairs of places of worship, YSR Schools Maintenance for repairs in schools and YSR Vaddileni Runalu (interest-free loans) for women self-help groups have been rolled out.

Many of the existing schemes have been rebranded with a new prefix. For instance, YSR Kalyana Lakshmi is a one-time marriage grant of ₹1 lakh provided to poor families. The same is offered to Scheduled Tribes as YSR Giri Putrika and to Muslim families as YSR Shaadi Taufa.

Fixation for Nehru-Gandhi family

In the run-up to the 2004 elections in the combined Andhra Pradesh, YSR ran an aggressive campaign, promising to usher in Indiramma Rajyam, a welfare-oriented regime to realise the ideals of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.

After storming to power, his government had embarked on a spree of renaming government programmes in memory of the Nehru-Gandhi family.

Whether it was an irrigation scheme or a mass contact programme, invoking the Nehru Dynasty was the new mantra.

As a result, Janmabhoomi, a pet programme of his predecessor Chandrababu Naidu designed to involve people in developmental works in a spirit of self-help, became Rajiv Palle Baata (A journey to the village), a bi-weekly mass contact programme that took YSR to rural areas to receive petitions from villagers and obtain feedback on implementation of various developmental programmes.

The CMEY (Chief Minister’s Empowerment of Youth) programme of the previous regime was renamed Rajiv Yuva Shakthi, a programme to provide self-employment opportunities and facilitate institutional credit to the rural youth.

On Information Technology front, which was considered Naidu’s forte, the Congress government invoked the memory of Rajiv Gandhi, the original dreamer of technology-driven 21st century, and launched RAJiv (Rajiv Internet Village) to provide internet kiosks in every village by developing a broadband network.

An irrigation project on river Godavari was named after Rajiv Gandhi while an Integrated Land Development project was named Indira Prabha.

In a state where hero worship and politics are inexorably linked, all welfare programmes come with their own set of brand ambassadors. Andhra is witnessing political rebranding of welfare schemes.