The Maharashtra  government took an “in-principle" decision on Monday to announce a 4.5% reservation for Maharashtrian Muslims in government jobs, which could be followed by a 12% reservation for the Maratha community in colleges and government jobs. The Congress-NCP ruling alliance in the state has been considering implementing these quotas for months, but the actual announcement comes just four months before the assembly election in October.

The Congress-NCP combine has been in power in Maharashtra since 1999, but its dismal performance in the Lok Sabha election this May, in which it won just six out of 48 parliament seats, means they’ve been all but written off by political observers. Handing out job and education reservations to Muslims and Marathas is being seen as a desperate attempt to remain relevant in the contest.

Muslims form 10.6% of Maharashtra’s population. The Mahmoodur Rahman committee report, submitted to the state government in October 2013, recommended 8% job reservations for the community. Marathas form around 35% of the population. A subgroup, the Kunbis, already belong to the Other Backward Classes category, which receives separate job and education reservations. Earlier this month, Congress leader Narayan Rane promised a 20% quota for Marathas.

Chief minister Prithviraj Chavan’s government is now proposing smaller quotas. Yet it remains open to conjecture if they will ever be implemented. The Mumbai High Court must sanction the quotas before they can be put in place. Yet the point of pre-poll statements about reservations and other community-oriented sops lies in making the promise. It is a kind of symbolic offering that even the communities themselves often take seriously.

“In the 2009 Assembly election, the Congress had promised free electricity to peasants, a Shivaji statue for Marathas and an Ambedkar statue for Dalits,” said senior journalist and political commentator Kumar Ketkar. “These may not be implemented, but the party invents these cultural or economic sops to bridge the disconnect it has with the people.”

Not Only Reservations

The situation has become so bad for the Congress that the party leadership is considering another way of bringing voters, and legislators, back into the fold. Ever since the Lok Sabha results were announced, there has been tension within the Congress about Prithviraj Chavan’s continuance as chief minister. The NCP has privately made its demand for a change in leadership quite clear, with the assembly polls in mind. Chavan flew to Delhi last week to discuss the party’s chances in the state, and his own role, with Congress president Sonia Gandhi.

Chavan’s fate remains uncertain, but a change at the top, even if it comes just before an election the current government is likely to lose, is a means of satisfying both rebellious legislators within the party and disaffected voters.

“It is the chief minister who is expected to lead an election campaign, so in the current situation, a change of CM would make a huge difference in the way voters see the party,” said political commentator Surendra Jhondale.

Yet even political scientists admit difficulty in gauging the effectiveness of pre-poll promises.

“In a rational world, you would expect voters not to fall for the same trick several times in a row, but that would depend on how long voter memories are,” said Tariq Thachil, assistant professor of political science at Yale University. “We don’t really have much research in India to show whether voters are myopic or not.”

Thachil emphasised that voters don’t make decisions in a vacuum. If many political parties behave in similar ways, they are likely to vote for the one that offends them the least, even though it may be a party that has broken promises in the past." Also, because we have separate governments in the states and at the centre, voters often don’t know whom to hold responsible when a poll promise has not been met,” said Thachil.

In the meanwhile, the Congress and NCP seem determined to choose the route of offering largesse to different communities. It is a policy that has served them well in the past.