After Karnataka, Congress now promises free power in Madhya Pradesh

After Karnataka, the Congress has now promised free power in the poll-bound state of Madhya Pradesh. The party has promised to provide 100 units of free electricity and 200 units at half the tariff, in order to woo the voters of the state, ahead of the assembly polls. Former Chief Minister and State Congress chief Kamal Nath, while addressing a public meeting in Badnawar in Dhar district, announced, "100 unit bijli maaf aur 200 unit bijli half (100 units electricity waived and 200 units electricity halved)."

After the thumping victory in the recently concluded assembly polls of Karnataka, Congress is looking to go all out to gain back power in Madhya Pradesh in the upcoming assembly elections slated to take place in around November this year. The party had earlier promised to the people of Karnataka before the assembly elections that under the 'Gruha Jyothi' scheme, 200 units of free electricity will be given to each house every month.

Congress' Mission Madhya Pradesh

Notably, the announcement of free power in Madhya Pradesh by the Congress is said to be the fourth major promise by the opposition party that is looking to come back to power in the state. Before the 'free electricity' promise, the party had promised Rs 1500 cash assistance to every woman of the state every month. Apart from this, the party has announced the revival of the Old Pension Scheme (OPS) for government employees and to provide domestic gas cylinders for Rs 500 each.

According to the reports, Congress was earlier talking about restarting the scheme of 100 units of electricity at Rs 100. However, on Thursday, Kamal Nath went on to make an even bigger promise to provide free electricity up to 100 units. 

The party sources have said that the fine-tuning of the announcement will be done and will be added to the manifesto during the elections. The party has also promised that it will restart the loan waiver scheme for farmers that was left halfway through when the Congress government collapsed in March 2020. 

Pertinently, the Congress had given five guarantees to the people of Karnataka ahead of the state's assembly polls and succeeded in clinching a massive victory. The party won 135 seats out of total 224-member state assembly. 

The five guarantees of the Congress in Karnataka are:

• 200 units of free electricity for each household every month under the 'Gruha Jyothi' scheme.
• Monthly assistance of Rs 2000 to the women head of households under the 'Gruha Lakshmi' scheme. 
• Free bus travel to all the women across the state under the 'Uchita Prayana' scheme. 
• Rs 3000 assistance to unemployed graduates and Rs 1500 to unemployed diploma holders every month under the 'Yuva Nidhi' scheme. 
• Free 10 kg rice to every person of the families living below the poverty line every month, under the 'Anna Bhagya' scheme. 

Madhya Pradesh Assembly elections

The elections for the 230-members Legislative Assembly of Madhya Pradesh is likely to take place around November this year. The last assembly elections concluded in November 2018. During the last polls, the Congress under the leadership of Kamal Nath had emerged as the single-largest party in the state with 114 seats, however, the party fell 2 seats short of the majority mark in the assembly. The BJP, which emerged as the second-largest party with 109 seats, witnessed a sharp decline in the number of seats the party won. In 2013, the party managed to get 165 seats. 

After the conclusion of the 2018 assembly polls, the Congress formed the government in the state with Kamal Nath becoming the Chief Minister. However, in March 2020, in a major setback, the Kamal Nath government collapsed in the state, after as many as 22 Congress MLAs suddenly defected to the BJP along with Union Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia.

Further, the BJP formed the government in the state and Shivraj Singh Chouhan was sworn in as the chief minister of the state. 
CM Chouhan is serving as the chief minister of Madhya Pradesh for the fourth time. Earlier, he had served for three-consecutive terms as the CM, before the Kamal Nath-led government came to power in 2018.