Pinarayi Vijayan's welfare sops help Kerala govt downplay PM SHRI setback

Thiruvananthapuram: Even as the Pinarayi Vijayan government in Kerala suffered a major embarrassment on Wednesday, as it was forced to freeze the PM SHRI scheme due to CPI(M)'s objection, Vijayan has exhibited his political shrewdness by shifting the focus to a slew of sops that he announced.

As the local body and assembly elections in Kerala are approaching it is quite certain that the Pinarayi government will announce sops as part of its ongoing efforts to script a hattrick victory in the 2026 assembly elections. It was widely anticipated that the sops will be announced at the special session of state assembly to be held on November 1 marking the state formation day anniversary.

Hence it came as a surprise when Vijayan rolled out the welfare measures, that too targeting all key sections like women, youth, over 60 lakh beneficiaries of social security pensions, government employees and other weaker sections. He thus managed to shift the entire focus, including newspaper headlines and channel debates, to the state's finances.

Meanwhile, the decision of the state government to freeze the PM SHRI scheme subject to a study by a cabinet subcommittee also seems to be an eye wash as well as a face saver for the CPI.

While CPI's ideological concern was that PM SHRI is an attempt of the Centre to impose RSS-BJP agenda in school curricular through the National Education Policy, the party, especially its four ministers, were more agitated over keeping them in the dark even after the education department signed the MoU with the Centre without holding discussions with the left front.

With the party's student and youth cadres launching demonstrations against the decision, the CPI leadership was left with no other option other than remaining firm on the demand for revoking the decision to implement PM SHRI.

By making the CPI agree to the suggestion to review the PM SHRI scheme by a cabinet sub-committee, the CPM could convey to the centre that they have just bought time and not shut the doors.

On the other hand, the CPI leaders could also claim that that could make Pinarayi review the decision despite his usual stubborn nature.

Already there are serious doubts whether the state could ask the centre to freeze the implementation of the PM SHRI scheme after signing the MoU.

All eyes in state's finances

As the fresh sops announced on Wednesday imposes an additional burden of around Rs. 10,000 crore on the cash strapped exchequer, the entire focus is now on the capability of the state in meeting the commitments.

Finance minister K N Balagopal was expressing confidence that sufficient funds could be raised through effective tax collection. He also said that no tax burdens would be imposed on the people to meet these demands. "We have made the announcements a few months ahead of the assembly election so that we could prove that we can meet the commitments in the coming months," said Balagopal.

Opposition leader V D Satheesan said that the LDF government would not be able to fool the people by making such announcements just ahead of the polls.

"Most of these welfare measures were announced by the government earlier also. In the 2021 election manifesto the CPM had assured that the social welfare pension will be increased to Rs. 2,500. But towards the fag end of its tenure that the government is announcing that the pension will be increased to Rs. 2,000," he flayed.