As PM Modi announces another LPG price cut, why gas subsidies and elections go hand in hand

Today, on Women’s Day, our Government has decided to reduce LPG cylinder prices by Rs. 100. This will significantly ease the financial burden on millions of households across the country, especially benefiting our Nari Shakti.

By making cooking gas more affordable, we also aim…

— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) March 8, 2024

It is a familiar strategy for political parties in power, including the BJP government at the Centre, to announce LPG subsidies ahead of elections. Last August, ahead of the Assembly polls in five states, the Centre announced a price reduction of Rs 200 per cylinder and expanded the PMUY coverage by 75 lakh households. Then in October, the government hiked the PMUY subsidy to Rs 300 per cylinder.

At the time, BJP insiders said ground reports and surveys had revealed that price rise was contributing to dissatisfaction among women voters — a crucial section of the electorate the party has its focus on for the state elections and the Lok Sabha polls — and the party’s strategists wanted the government to take steps to address it.

BJP’s strategy

For the BJP, the LPG subsidy falls neatly into its focus on creating a new base of labharthis, or welfare beneficiaries, on whose support it has been dependent in elections since 2017-’18. It is also in line with the PM’s focus on women voters. Women’s empowerment or “Nari Shakti” has featured regularly in Modi’s speeches since 2022.

BJP leaders have claimed that the ever-growing loyal support base of labharathis, irrespective of caste differences, propelled the party to victories in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections and important state polls.

“With economic issues and welfare politics back on the electoral scene, the party has a big challenge to get the credit for the flagship schemes the Central government has launched. This will be a key part of our campaign in the run-up to the Lok Sabha elections,” a senior BJP leader said last November.

In late November, Modi at a “Viksit Bharat” event identified women as one of the four “biggest castes”, alongside the poor, youth and farmers, whose uplift would help develop the country.

According to BJP insiders, Modi in his interactions with party leaders often reminds them that women voters are going to be the “game changers” in the elections and that their support will bring in “significant changes” in the political landscape. The party’s spectacular victories in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh last year were attributed, among other factors, to women voters. Between 2019 and 2024, the number of women voters has increased 9.31% from 43.1 crore to 47.1 crore. In recent years, women’s turnout has risen significantly – in 2019, the women’s turnout rate was higher than that for men.

In his Independence Day speech last year, Modi praised the work done by women-led rural self-help groups (SHGs) and said he wanted to make two crore women “lakhpati didis”. Self-help groups are small groups of mostly rural women who pool together resources and, with government assistance, provide financial services and access to credit in their communities. In his big speeches since Independence Day in 2022, Modi has frequently invoked the country’s “nari shakti” and identified women as the BJP’s “silent voters”.

Earlier this year, addressing a massive gathering of women in Kerala, Modi listed the schemes his government has rolled out for women in the last 10 years.

Opposition questions timing

The Opposition wasted no time in attacking the BJP over its latest price cut. Questioning the timing, NCP (Sharadchandra Pawar) MP Supriya Sule said, “I am not surprised at all. Look at the timing. They have been in power for the last 9 years. Why didn’t they think of this earlier? Just when the election, I mean it will probably be announced in the next 5 or 6 days, ‘yeh aur ek jumla hai (this is another gimmick)’.”

Congress spokesperson Surendra Rajput said, “BJP is a very clever party. They sell (LPG) cylinders of Rs 395 at Rs 1,000 and then PM Modi makes an announcement of reducing it by Rs 100.” Trinamool Congress MP Saket Gokhale also criticised the government for not implementing the cut along with the reduction last year.

Last year, parties across the five poll-bound states had announced LPG subsidies, seen as a way to swing votes of the crucial demographic of women.

In Rajasthan, the Congress promised cooking gas cylinders to more than a crore eligible families. Earlier in 2023, through “Mehengai Rahat (inflation relief)” camps, the government had begun providing subsidised cylinders at Rs 500 each. In Madhya Pradesh, the Congress promised LPG cylinders at Rs 500 in August. Shortly afterwards, then BJP CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan announced that it would offer LPG cylinders for Rs 450. In Telangana, then CM K Chandrasekhar Rao of the Bharat Rashtra Samithi undercut the Congress’s Rs 500 cylinder with its promise of cylinders for Rs 400.