Centre, Nitish Kumar Woo Voters With Sops Just Before Poll Announcement

New Delhi: Just before the Election Commission announced dates for the Bihar Assembly elections today, there were other announcements. A flurry of them at the Centre, and some in the state as both governments scrambled to squeeze in sops before a model code of conduct kicked in.

The code prohibits policy announcements that can be used as sops to influence voters and is in place as soon as an election schedule is announced.  

First, Union Power Minister Piyush Goyal announced more coal linkages for the Barh Thermal Power station in Bihar, saying it would save the state Rs 2,000 crore a year. "The price of power per unit in Bihar from this place will come down by over half," the minister said.

Soon after, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley announced a 6 per cent hike in Dearness Allowance for central government employees. The Nitish Kumar government promptly announced an equal hike in DA for state government employees, numbering about 3 lakh.

"This is nothing to do with the elections, this is work for the benefit of the people in the state," Mr Kumar said. But his party colleague KC Tyagi accused the BJP, which rules at the Centre, of timing the DA hike sweetly. Mr Tyagi said the state had to follow what the Centre did.

Sources in the Bihar government say the timing of Mr Goyal's power announcement is equally strategic, as Mr Kumar would have made an election issue out of the high cost of power from the recently commissioned Barh station, built by the National Thermal Power Corportaion.

The Bihar election is a crucial test for the BJP, which lost the last Assembly election it contested in Delhi. Mr Nitish Kumar leads an alliance that has vowed to hand the party its second defeat this year, after a string of wins starting with the national election last year.