The days when the election manifesto of a political party dealt with broad policy and identified means and ways to put that policy into action, are gone. Today it’s all about attracting voters with grandiose plans, schemes and financial rewards. The motto is: if you can’t bribe voters prior to the elections, you can induce them with cash dole-outs after the elections. It’s like a futures market where voters go for the party that can give them the most cash after the polls. And the Congress has chosen this route to success.
The Congress manifesto is a combination of financial promises to practically every sector. For the youth there is free petrol, more wi-fi towers and for the rest there are hikes in dole like the Griha Aadhar scheme to Rs 5,000, and Rs 5,000 to unemployed youth. Then for those in the mining sector the party has promised to waive off loans to families who own trucks at the rate of one truck per family. One cannot blame the Congress alone for this trend. AAP was the first to promise huge dole outs which would cost the exchequer an additional Rs 626 crore. When questioned AAP leaders said the additional money would be generated by bringing down corruption to nil. Can the Congress say the same? Before AAP, it was the BJP which started the trend of doles, which are not a bad thing for people who are below the poverty line and require state aid. But the BJP took it to a new level and the annual expenditure on all its schemes went up to Rs 1,030 crore. And it seems odd that this type of bribery is not considered illegal by the Election Commission. Perhaps, it is too late for the EC to do something now, but it must study the category of ‘future bribes’ and come up with a solution because, if it is wrong to bribe voters prior to an election it is equally wrong to pay them bribe money after the polls.
Of the many promises made by the Congress, the one to set up a sports education university and medical and dental colleges in South Goa seem to have come out of a hat. Is there a demand for a sports education university? Goa is already struggling to set up infrastructure for the national games, how will it make room for a university? The promise to set up a second medical college leaves out the crucial details of whether it will be in the public or private sector. If at all the second college is going to be run by the government, where is the money to fund it going to come from?
Lastly, it has become a painful recurrence for political parties to promise to throw out offshore casinos during election only to cozy up to them after the results are declared. Digambar Kamat was the only chief minister who made an attempt to move the casinos out of the Mandovi, but the move got entangled in a legal battle and came to naught. Casinos have been the State’s favourite whipping boys but throwing them out of Mandovi has proved to be more difficult on account of the revenue they provide and the potential for extortion. So, one can look forward to some U-turns after this election.
