Battle For Tamil Nadu: Welfare Street

Chief Minister EPS goes for a saturation strategy of sops to win another term

- Amarnath K. Menon

On February 26, barely hours before the Election Commission declared the schedule for the assembly election, Tamil Nadu chief minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami (EPS) made the last of a string of ‘poll sop’ announcements. In a landmark waiver to retain the support of women—the mainstay of the AIADMK since the days of the late party icon, J. Jayalalithaa—EPS waived the small loans taken by women self-help groups from cooperative banks and societies (by pledging up to six sovereigns of gold as security).

On the same day, the legislative assembly passed a bill to provide 10.5 percent reservation for the Vanniyar community in education and jobs within the 20 percent quota for the Most Backward Classes and De-Notified Communities category, thereby fulfilling the community’s four-decade-old demand. Every new announcement now is made invoking the ‘Puratchi Thalaivi Amma’ (what Jayalalithaa was called reverentially), in whose name numerous welfare schemes were launched even during her lifetime.

A day earlier, on February 25, EPS announced that 2.7 million students in classes 9, 10 and 11 would be automatically promoted without taking the term exams, a favour to the students in the districts who he reckons did not have the advantage of online classes during the Covid pandemic. For 969,000 students in government-run and aided colleges, 2 GB data with free 4G connectivity is being provided from January to April 2021. To win over the 1.2 million-plus government employees, EPS has raised the age of retirement to 60 (after raising it from 58 to 59 just last year).