Indian Politics: How Crises affect Voter Decisions

With the dates for national elections in India recently set for April 13 - May 16, I have become more sensitive to articles and papers that discuss voter tendencies (particularly within India). This morning I came across an interesting paper on voters' reaction to weather crises in India, and whether government responses to such crises affect voter decisions (courtesy of a blog by Chris Blattman, a Yale Political Science professor). With weather crises, it seem like incumbent provincial governments do lose votes after floods or droughts, but that these losses can be lessened if the government provides timely and well-documented relief aid. As the paper's authors (Shawn Cole and Eric Werker of Harvard, and Andrew Healy of Loyola-Marymount), put it:
"We find that voters do indeed punish politicians following adverse weather events, but that the degree of punishment depends critically on the quality of the ruling party’s response: those distributing greater amounts of relief aid suffer smaller subsequent electoral losses."

The paper I discuss above focuses on crises related to weather. On a broader level, I wonder whether the current financial crisis will negatively affect Congress in the upcoming elections. The government is definitely trying to react to the crisis both on the national level. For instance Congress has passed two fiscal stimulus packages in December 2008 and Jan. 2009 that combined amount to 3% of India's GDP, and has expanded the national rural employment scheme (NREGA). As this Reserve Bank of India (RBI) paper details on page 9, there have been several relief packages across the past 12 months:
"These fiscal stimulus packages, together amounting to about 3 per cent of GDP, included additional public spending, particularly capital expenditure, government guaranteed funds for infrastructure spending, cuts in indirect taxes, expanded guarantee cover for credit to micro and small enterprises, and additional support to exporters. These stimulus packages came on top of an already announced expanded safety-net for rural poor, a farm loan waiver package and salary increases for government staff, all of which too should stimulate demand."

Voter theory, and the paper discussed in the 1st paragraph on weather-related crises, demonstrate that crises typically result in the incumbent government losing votes. In the Indian context, it seems like government aid programmes can help mitigate these losses, particularly with weather-related crises. Will this idea hold with the financial crisis? Has the incumbent government's package provided visible relief to distressed voters (such as food aid would after a flood)?

As the financial crisis by nature is more abstract than a flood that destroys the crop for a year, I am not sure how voters will react to government relief programmes. These relief packages are more indirect than food aid or direct government benefits, and accordingly I am not sure if voters will feel the affects of aid in the same way. Regardless, it's fun to think about . . .