Mumbai, April 22 -- Giving Rs72,000 per year to India's poorest 20% households under the Nyuntam Aay Yojana (Nyay) is the biggest promise by the Congress in these elections. The party has two justifications for it. First, the scheme has been described as some sort of last-mile assault on poverty. India does not have updated poverty numbers after 2011-12. It is likely that the new poverty ratio won't be far from the 20% mark. So theoretically, Nyay can lead to the eradication of poverty. The second justification is to sell Nyay as a stimulus to the economy, which has been subject to deflationary shocks through policies such as demonetisation. Congress president Rahul Gandhi and other leaders have been talking about Nyay being a policy to remonetise the economy. In principle, there is nothing wrong with this. Counter-cyclical measures are an integral part of economic policy choices. But what the Congress doesn't seem to realise is that even if it is elected, a full-scale implementation of Nyay will come four to five years after demonetisation was rolled out....