BJP Manifesto: Full of Inane ‘Sankalp’ Sans Any Vision

You must avoid the manifesto if you are one of those waiting for new things to come should NDA return to power.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP President Amit Shah and Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh release Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) manifesto (Sankalp Patra) for the Lok Sabha elections 2019.

(Photo: PTI)

The Bharatiya Janata Party’s ‘Sankalp Patra’ (a list of resolutions) has signalled continuity and has desisted from promising the fancy variation of achhe din. In that sense, it has been a no-frills document and a welcome relief, perhaps.

However, if you are one of those waiting for a glimpse of things to come should the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance return to power post the Lok Sabha elections, the document is best left avoided.

Sample some of the ‘visionary’ promises:

• On the jobs front, the BJP promises to “create new opportunities of employment by providing more support to the 22 major 'Champion Sectors' identified as the main drivers of Indian economy”. What an idea! Identification of ‘Champion Sectors’ is all that is required to create jobs.
• To boost the rural economy, the Sankalp Patra has made three new promises –extending the benefits of Kisan Samman Yojana to all the farmers, pension for small and marginal farmers and zero interest for five years on short-term credit of up to Rs 1 lakh. Is that all that is required to double the income of farmers by 2022? Instead of better targeting of welfare benefits, we are promising doles to rich farmers as well. But what about tenants and landless labour? Don’t they deserve a bigger slice of the welfare pie?

• There is a chapter on making India the third largest economy. It says that “we commit to make India a US $ 5 trillion economy by 2025 and US $ 10 trillion economy by 2032.” The ways in which the goal has to be achieved include lowering the tax rate, simplifying the Goods and Services Tax (GST), promoting Yoga globally, “by 2024, we will make capital investment of Rs 100 lakh crore in the infrastructure sector” and making India a global manufacturing hub. Is this a wish list or a roadmap? We have failed to make India a manufacturing hub despite the much-hyped ‘Make in India’. The rate of investment has been going downhill and we were expecting a roadmap on how to get this reversed. Not the same pious wishes all over again.
• On healthcare, the party promises that “we are committed to leverage all resources to ensure that the out-of-pocket expenditure on health is reduced and all citizens can avail necessary medical services.” Very noble commitment indeed. But a hint of how resources are to be mobilised should have been better. More so, because we know that allocation on health as percentage of GDP has been consistently falling in the last five years. Sans commitment to greater allocation of resources, the promise comes across as one of those achhe din slogans.
• The chapter on good governance reads like a lesson on moral science. It says: “To transform India into a developed nation, we need to work with the guiding principle of ‘Minimum Government and Maximum Governance’ and we will bring reform in the Civil Services and implement it in a manner to achieve the same.” If the last five years was influenced by the guiding principle of ‘Minimum Government and Maximum Governance,’ we need to seriously ask ourselves whether we should at all have that as our guiding principle.

BJP Manifesto Strewn With Same Promises All Over Again

Other than these promises, recurring themes like repealing Article 370 of the Constitution, rolling out the Uniform Civil Code and the construction of Ram Temple at Ayodhya too, have been given prominence in the party manifesto, yet again. However, what is most striking, but not surprising at all, is the prominence given to the chapter on national security.

The manifesto begins with the chapter titled ‘Nation First’. And the very first promise reads: “Our security doctrine will be guided by our national security interest only.”

We are still trying to figure out what this promise means. Is there a message for the ‘tukde-tukde’ gang who are advocating ‘balkanisation’ of the country by supporting abolition of the sedition law? I request researchers to decipher the underlying message.

Finally, we should laud the Sankalp Patra for mentioning the word ‘minority’ four times.

In fact, there is a section called ‘development with dignity for the minorities’. It says: “We are committed to the empowerment and ‘development with dignity’ of all minorities (Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains and Parsis etc ).”

After going through the manifesto, I am trying to figure out why Union minister Sushma Swaraj wanted all of us to read the Sankalp Patra along with manifestos released by other parties. Have I missed something which others will be able to find out?