Competitive populism is being played out to woo voters by both BJP and Congress and the saffron party’s manifesto named ‘sankalp patra’ appears to be a tit-for-tat response to the recently released Congress document.
If BJP announced its PM Kisan Scheme sanctioning Rs 6,000 per annum to all small and marginal farmers with holdings of less than 2 hectares, the Congress came up with its Nyuntam Aay Yojana (NYAY) promising a yearly dole of Rs 72,000 each to five crore poor families. Congress assured to fill up 22 lakh government vacancies, a separate budget for farmers and to simplify GST in its manifesto. And Prime Minister Narendra Modi followed suit unveiling a 45-page manifesto making 75 ambitious promises.
An interesting thread common between both manifestos is that the BJP and Congress are at war to win over the distressed farmer. Countering Congress promises, the BJP has vowed to double farmers’ income by 2022 while also assuring an investment of Rs 25 lakh crore in rural India in the next five years. It also promised to expand the Kisan Scheme to all farmers and provide interest-free loans of up to Rs 1 lakh.
Improving India’s rank in ease of doing business, increasing exports and bringing in a change in production are positive goals, but Modi has failed in his promise to tackle unemployment in the 2014 poll manifesto.
The BJP is trying to bank on its high josh of national security promising to infuse new ammo and as expected it will milk the nationalism pitch to its advantage. This is where the talk of surgical strikes and India’s reported preparedness for attack on Pakistan makes political sense.
While parties have been selling dreams to voters through manifestos, it’s time citizens wake up to reality and open up debates. Parties release manifestos without detailing, some of which remain empty promises at the end of the tenure, like the one Modi made on recovering black money. Some of the failed promises made by BJP in 2014 include tackling price rise, corruption, boosting education, agriculture and manufacturing sectors. Construction of a Ram Temple in Ayodhya, annulling Article 370 of the Constitution, which gives special status to Jammu and Kashmir, enactment of a Uniform Civil Code and reservation for women were on the priority list of the BJP in 2014, and have resurfaced in the 2019 manifesto as well.
Manifestos have remained documents of ‘kasme and vaade’. Both Congress and BJP are making huge promises completely ignoring the fiscal implication. There is no road-map on how the government could extend the Kisan scheme to other farmers, neither is the Congress able to explain the math behind its NYAY. Fiscal prudence has been thrown to the wind and ground realities have not been factored in. A below-normal monsoon this year could trigger a spike in inflation, but parties appear to be insensitive to such forecasts. It’s been all about votes.
