Campaign turns into a sop opera in Tamil Nadu

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Tamil Nadu Deputy Chief Minister Udhayanidhi Stalin campaigns for Minister for Public Works, Highways and Minor Ports and DMK campaigner  E.V. Velu successful  Tiruvannamalai connected  March 31, 2026.

Tamil Nadu Deputy Chief Minister Udhayanidhi Stalin campaigns for Minister for Public Works, Highways and Minor Ports and DMK campaigner E.V. Velu successful Tiruvannamalai connected March 31, 2026. | Photo Credit: ANI

With the Assembly predetermination to beryllium held successful 3 weeks, it is clip for large parties successful Tamil Nadu, which has earned the sobriquet of being the eventual freebie State, to travel up with their ain schemes of enticements for electors, totalling implicit 5.67 crore. 

Among the proposals connected the array are an summation successful the magnitude of monthly assistance for women from ₹1,000 to ₹2,000, and coupons worthy ₹8,000 for each non-income tax-paying pistillate (homemaker) to bargain user durables, both promised by the ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), whose electoral committedness of providing ₹1,000 each to women was regarded arsenic 1 of the factors liable for the instrumentality of the Dravidian large to powerfulness aft a 10-year gap. There are different schemes, specified as Pudhumai Penn and Tamil Puthalvan, some aimed astatine encouraging authorities schoolhouse students to prosecute higher education, wherein the enactment has assured the electorate that the assistance magnitude would spell up to ₹ 1,500.

The ruling party’s accepted adversary, the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK), which began issuing its dose of canvass guarantees successful mid-January and concluded it successful the past week of March by issuing a broad canvass manifesto, was the archetypal to denote the enhanced assistance of ₹2,000 each to women. In an enactment of one-upmanship, the enactment stated that each women holding household cards would beryllium covered. This means the fig of beneficiaries would beryllium accrued by 1 crore from the existent 1.23 crore. If this assurance is implemented, the yearly outlay would sprout up to around ₹55,200 crore. The enactment has besides promised escaped refrigerators for each atom cardholders, numbering astir 2.22 crore. There are a big of different benefits, including escaped 1kg dal and 1 kilolitre of cooking oil, for beneficiaries of the nationalist organisation system.

Not to beryllium near behind, the Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK) has projected hiking the assistance magnitude to ₹2,500 for women, gifting 1 sovereign of golden nether the matrimony assistance strategy and providing an unemployment allowance of ₹4,000 for graduates, which is akin to that of the AIADMK that offers ₹2,000. There is an “odd antheral out” successful the signifier of the Naam Tamilar Katchi (NTK), which is against freebies arsenic a substance of principle.

The promises travel astatine a clip erstwhile the State’s gross shortage for 2026-27 is estimated to beryllium ₹48,700 crore, a fig worked retired independently of specified offers. Besides, Tamil Nadu has been, astatine the all-India level, assessed arsenic 1 of those States whose expenditure connected subsidies arsenic a percent of gross receipts exceeds the nationalist average.

It is an unfastened concealed that the promises of freebies unsocial bash not warrant triumph to immoderate party, arsenic invariably each different enactment has been making specified promises. Though immoderate nationalist argumentation experts reason that not each freebie strategy needs to beryllium condemned, the State’s large parties are unwilling to disturb the presumption quo contempt knowing that definite schemes bash not output the desired results oregon are being continued purposelessly.

Published - March 31, 2026 05:47 p.m. IST

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