India's Modi banks on $400bn cash splurge to win election

Key Facts

It is one of the more than 300 federal schemes that Mr Modi is leaning on to bolster support for his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) during the general election as he eyes a record-equalling third term in office.
Image source, BIMAL tHANKACHAN Image caption, Y Laxmi (sitting left of her mother-in-law) says a $180 annual handout helps educate her two sons (third and fourth, left) Hundreds of miles away in the coastal city of Visakhapatnam in southern India's Andhra Pradesh state, Y Laxmi pins her hopes on welfare to secure a brighter future for her children.
Surveys show voters identify welfare programmes with the ruling parties, and that the number of households reporting using clean cooking fuel, toilets and women's access to bank accounts has increased since Mr Modi came to power a decade ago.
In 2019, a survey by polling group Lokniti-CSDS, found that the BJP had attracted more women voters in that year's general elections, because of a rise in Mr Modi's popularity and the impact of welfare schemes.