India, Feb. 27 -- For over a decade, Delhi elections have been dominated by promises of direct benefits to voters in terms of free electricity, water, transport, and so on. The initial success of this political innovation encouraged many parties to introduce more and more such measures in different states. It had also spurred a competition of sorts between political parties to match and outsmart one another in the degree of the benefits they offered to voters. If this month's Delhi election results are an indicator, this practice seems to have reached a saturation point with both the voters as well as the political parties.

Day-to-day issues affecting quality of life such as availability of safe drinking water, broken roads, poor sewerag...