Comparing Manifestos of Political Parties in Lok Sabha Elections 2024: Manifestation of Mission Vs Confusion

The festival of democracy is being celebrated in the country. After the announcement of Lok Sabha elections, all political parties have been trying to woo voters. This time the main contest is between Bharatiya Janata Party led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi along with its allies in National Democratic Front (NDA) and I.N.D.I. Alliance of Opposition parties. I.N.D.I. Alliance includes Congress, Samajwadi Party, Left parties, Trinamool Congress (TMC), Aam Aadmi Party, Uddhav Thackeray’s Shiv Sena and Sharad Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party.

Whether elections are at the national level or at the local and State level, in democracy, different political parties release their election manifestoes. In these election manifestoes, they inform the public about their policies and programmes in case they get elected. Different parties have written different types of claims and promises in their election manifestoes. Bharatiya Janata Party has named its election manifesto as Sankalp Patra, while the Congress has named it Nyay Patra.

This Sankalp Patra of Bharatiya Janata Party gives details of the work done by the BJP Government in the last ten years and talks about the party’s promises in the coming times. As we know prior to the last ten years of Bharatiya Janata Party’s rule, there was a UPA Government led by Congress for ten years.

Corruption-Free Governance

The ten year Government of Dr Manmohan Singh as Prime Minister had some bitter experiences, due to which the people of India ousted Congress and handed over the reins of power to BJP. BJP’s rule had some special achievements of its own, making it the most popular party and Narendra Modi as the most popular leader, as per pre-poll surveys. Due to fast and healthy economic development, Bharat has not only come out of the list of five most fragile economies of the world and has now become the fifth largest economy of the world, it has also become the fastest growing large economy of the world. Whether it is achievements in the field of space or physical and digital infrastructure, opening more than 50 crore Jan Dhan accounts or defeating corruption through Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) to the people using technology, UPI in the digital sector and other important projects in the digital sector or eliminating multidimensional poverty, the list of BJP’s achievements is never ending. Therefore, when the Bharatiya Janata Party’s Sankalp Patra talks about making India a manufacturing hub, making India a developed nation by 2047, expanding the Ayushman Yojana to all senior citizens above 70 years, attacking multidimensional poverty or empowering women, this Sankalp Patra seems more credible than the election manifestoes of other political parties, who have the history of non-fulfilment of their promises.

Though all political parties talk about development, public welfare and inclusive policies, it is also important to know what their viewpoint is on all these subjects and how they intend to fulfil these goals through their policies and programmes. It is also important to understand what kind of programmes they will adopt to achieve their declared goals. It is also important to know what achievements have been made by adopting such programmes in the past. Though, in their manifestoes they promise the moon, the real question is from where will the resources come? Therefore, presently in some ongoing cases in the courts, questions are being raised, not only about ethical aspects of freebies, questions are also being asked about, how the resources will be raised for the same?.

Fillip to Women’s Empowerment

For a long time, there has been a concern in the country that the participation of women in the country’s workforce, and therefore in the economy, is very low. When the participation of half of the country’s population, that is, women folk in the workforce is only 39.3 per cent in rural areas and 26.5 per cent in urban areas, then this concern is real. Since poverty affects women more, for their empowerment, Congress has made a promise of giving Rs one lakh to every poor woman. It is worth mentioning that the total number of poor people in the country, who are given free ration, is 80 crore. In such a situation, if the number of adult women is seen among these poor, then it can be between 20 and 25 crore. But Congress does not have any data about how many women may get this benefit. Moreover, Congress is silent about the financial aspect of this promise, which could be no less than 20 lakh crore, approximately 40 per cent of Central Government annual Budget.

The NDA Government led by Narendra Modi has achieved some special landmark in the field of women’s empowerment. Under the ‘Lakhpati Didi’ scheme, one crore women have become lakhpatis (i.e. those with an income of more than one lakh rupees) through self-help groups, development of entrepreneurship among women and other efforts. Sankalp Patra talks of making two crore more Lakhpati Didi. To increase women’s participation in the workforce, Sankalp Patra talks about increasing women’s participation by building women’s hostels, creches, etc. Apart from this, Sankalp Patra talks about providing marketing support to self-help groups (run by women) and also increasing their participation in the service sector, greater participation of women in sports, building health facilities for women and toilets in public places and their maintenance. Not only this, the Drone Didi scheme was also started to help women move forward with new technology, which Prime Minister has said will be taken up further. It can be understood that instead of just distributing Government money among poor women, if entrepreneurship is instilled in them, their enterprises are helped, they are connected with new technology, they are given facilities to increase their participation in the work force and through all this, enhancing their prestige in society, then that will be true empowerment. Not only this, through this they will be able to play a big role in building a new India. On the basis of available data, it is clear that in the last 10 years, crimes against women, mostly rapes, have come down drastically, and the credit for this mostly goes to the construction of about 11 crore toilets at homes. This scheme will need to be strengthened further.

Cong’s Promise Rings Hollow

The votes of the youth have a special significance in every election. In every election, there is a large number of youths who were not voters till the previous elections. These young voters also make a great impact on the election results.

Congress has avoided promising unemployment allowance and has instead promised a new Right to Apprenticeship Act providing one-year apprenticeships for diploma holders and college graduates under 25 years. The party has also made a commitment to filling nearly 30 lakh vacancies in Central Government. We must understand that the number of youth seeking employment is much bigger and even 30 lakh Government jobs can’t fulfil the needs of the youth.

Youth could be benefited, if they are empowered to get employment or run their own enterprise and therefore give employment to others also. Many schemes for empowerment of youth have been proposed in the Sankalp Patra of Bharatiya Janata Party.

Eradicating Poverty

The country has achieved considerable success in the last 10 years in eradicating poverty, including 4 crore pakka houses under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana, tap water to all households, clean cooking fuel to 10 crore Ujjwala beneficiaries, electricity, toilets, free and quality health facilities. Thanks to the price stability of food items, measures like free ration to more than 80 crore countrymen from the year 2020, today only less than one per cent of the population is suffering from extreme poverty and till the year 2019-21, only 23 crore people were suffering from poverty, down from 37 crore in 2015-16. And this number is continuously decreasing.

It is interesting that Congress has also talked about justice for the poor. In the 2019 election manifesto, Congress had promised a cash amount of Rs 72,000 per month to every poor family, but this time it has promised to give one lakh rupees to poor women. Doubling the contribution of the Central Government towards the salary of Anganwadi, ASHA workers, mid-day meal cooks etc. has also been included in the Nayay Patra of Congress.

Taking the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana forward and building two crore more houses, extending the Ayushman Bharat Yojana to provide Ayushman facilities to all the elderly above 70 years of age, providing free electricity to one crore households through solar energy and a plan to earn money through same; all these are ‘Sankalp’ fulfilling the dreams of the poor. It can be understood that a distinction has to be made between increasing income with the help of Government assistance or building the capacity to earn more income with Government assistance. It is natural that the efficiency of the people will improve with the construction of concrete houses. During ten years of UPA regime, the pace of poverty alleviation had been slow despite enactment of the right to food for the poor, right to employment, etc. during UPA regime, while better results have been achieved in the Narendra Modi Government in improving the standard of living of the poor. In the recent report of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), India has been praised by this UN agency for her significant achievements in eliminating multidimensional poverty.

Protecting Farmers Interest

Though Samman Nidhi, being given to farmers by the Narendra Modi Government, can also be seen as a free scheme, but along with this, there are many measures including increase in Minimum Support Price (MSP), self-sufficiency in pulses and edible oils, improving storage of agricultural products including vegetables, increasing the income of farmers by promoting coarse grains called Shri Ann, natural farming, crop diversity, agricultural infrastructure mission, improvement in irrigation facilities, public digital infrastructure for agriculture, which have been included in Sankalp Patra of BJP, are destined to improve the condition of the farmers. Alongside, supporting activities of agriculture like dairy cooperatives, conservation of indigenous breeds, prevention of diseases in animals and making the cooperative movement capable, transparent and equipped with technology through the National Cooperative Policy are other salient points of BJP’s Sankalp Patra. The Congress manifesto includes giving legal recognition to the MSP, creating a permanent system to suggest waiver of agricultural loans, among other things, for imparting justice to the farmers. Earlier also, agricultural loans were waived off by Congress party. The Narendra Modi Government did increase Minimum Support Price, but legal guarantee for the same was put on hold due to the apprehension of its adverse effect on the government treasury. It must be understood that if the MSP is made legally mandatory and permanent arrangements are made to waive off the loans of farmers, then it may be populist scheme and can have an adverse impact on the country’s economy. Any political party should think sensitively about the adverse effects on the country’s economy due to its populist policies, and should rather make promises, which are well within the resources of the nation.