Delhi has been rife with rumours of a likely announcement of dole from government coffers for millions of unemployed youth. This could well make the current dispensation led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi romp home in the 2024 general election. But the buzz in the corridors of power is that the massive security breach in the new Parliament building on December 13 by two unemployed men has resulted in the idea being put on hold for the time being, at least.

Behind the surmises about assistance for the unemployed was the fact that a couple of months before the last Lok Sabha elections in 2019, the Modi government launched a scheme to provide ₹6,000 per annum to farmers under the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi. The scheme continues and ₹2,000 is directly credited to the bank accounts of millions of farmers across the country every four months.

Moreover, the prime minister recently asserted that there were just four castes in India—the poor, women, youth and kisan (farmers).

The last segment has already been provided monetary support, there are charitable schemes for women like Ladli Bahna (‘Lovely Sister’) in BJP-ruled states like Madhya Pradesh, and the poor are being given five kilogrammes of rations monthly under the Centre’s scheme. So, the only category left out is the youth.

During the campaign for the recent assembly polls in five states, Modi repeated his assurance to the nation that nobody would go to sleep hungry. He countered the Congress offer of a spate of guarantees such as free bus rides for women by saying that “those who don’t have any guarantee to be in politics are offering guarantees”. So much so that he often ended up using the phrase “Modi ki guarantee” during the campaign. It was reduced to being a case of guarantee versus guarantee until the BJP won three of the five states that went to the polls in November.