After promising in its election manifesto to provide three free LPG cylinders per year to every household in Goa, the State government has reportedly dropped the proposal citing financial burden on the state exchequer. It is learnt that the proposal approved by the Cabinet in March, last year would have cost the government an additional financial burden of around Rs 120 crore annually, if implemented without any income criteria. The proposal was later diluted and it was decided that only ‘Below Poverty Line’ (BPL) cardholders will benefit from the scheme and in December 2022 the proposal was dropped. An election manifesto is a published document containing declaration of the ideology, intentions, views, policies and programmes of a certain political party. Unfortunately, the political parties who have been elected either on the strength of their manifestos or otherwise, tend to ignore, indefinitely delay, or even outright reject manifesto policies, which were popular with the public at the time of elections. These political parties can do this simply because there is no enforcement mechanism whether in the Representation of Peoples Act, 1951 or set by the Election Commission.
