His cleverly designed direct benefit transfers have turned incumbency into an advantage. This, however, has sown seeds of fiscal ruin in India’s poorest state. The giveaway will be politically truly worth it if he gets a big mandate
NDA govt has rolled out an enormous welfare package to win Bihar voters. It will have dire fiscal consequences. My back-of-the-envelope math suggests that just the top two programmes have already raised state revenue expenditure by 10%.