There will be pointed criticism at Bihar, however, as the southern states have borne the brunt of slanted distribution of resources and even a share in taxes as they see the Centre as disproportionately favouring states like it which have a larger population but smaller tax kitties. It hardly needs to be reminded that the present dispensation has been voted in thrice basically with a northern bias
India is an electoral democracy. And like it or not, the accent tends to be heavily on the polls. Where the focus would be in this year’s Budget was made evident by the sari that the finance minister wore — a pastel Madhubani made in Bihar’s Mithila region.
Populism can be fiercely competitive when it comes to poll-oriented freebies because all parties indulge in this culture of giving away what is taken by way of taxes from the rich and the middle classes. The advantage the party or alliance ruling at the Centre enjoys is that they can focus on a state going to the polls in a year and earmark projects in gestures that are intensely political and yet are not freebies.
Once a laggard according to many social and financial parameters and condescendingly reduced to being described as one of the “Bimaru” states, Bihar has been fortunate in being the state in focus in a couple of Budgets now, beginning with the one in July 2024, which was the NDA-BJP’s first in its third term, and in the fuller Budget of February 2025 when the purse strings have been opened with particular emphasis on poll-bound Bihar.
For those with a taste for fox nuts or lotus nuts as they are called in English, this is a Makhana Budget and Bihar will benefit from a brownfield airport, an expanded airport in Patna and a bigger IIT plus a canal besides other benefits. But then, putting the spotlight on certain states is not unusual considering all new trains introduced in several earlier Budgets would run to Bengal as the railway minister happened to be from there.
There will be pointed criticism at Bihar, however, as the southern states have borne the brunt of slanted distribution of resources and even a share in taxes as they see the Centre as disproportionately favouring states like it which have a larger population but smaller tax kitties. It hardly needs to be reminded that the present dispensation has been voted in thrice basically with a northern bias.
This is, however, good politics given the penchant of a leader of Bihar to jump ship midstream a few times. Keeping the flock together is sacred coalition dharma and this is what is being upheld in this extreme liking for Bihar in two successive Budgets.
