Dinesh Kamath's Editorial 'Impractical manifesto by Congress' that was published in Newsband

Impractical manifesto by Congress

The Congress party in its manifesto pledges to follow a ‘wealth and welfare’ approach if voted back to power. It promises to create wealth through promotion of private enterprise and expand welfare for the vulnerable sections of society at an unprecedented scale. An ambitious minimum income guarantee scheme is to directly transfer ₹6,000 a month to the poorest 20% households. Congress leaders stress that this manifesto addresses the needs and aspirations of the marginalised sections of society.

Election manifestos are important for political discussions ahead of elections. We need not only Rafale, bombs, arms, wars, but we also need issues like job, education, health, agriculture to be solved.

With the chances of a Congress government coming to power at the Centre relatively remote, the dangle of carrots would be seen through as impractical and irresponsibly utopian. There is no attempt to define how a Congress government if it comes to power would mobilise resources to meet the huge costs of its sops to sections of the population and to finance its welfare programmes. This inevitably detracts from the credibility of its promises.

Really the Congress manifest promises the moon.  But the road map for achieving it seems to run rough.  Money is required to be implement the pension scheme.  Regarding providing employment, the less said the better since this is routine exercise of all the political parties during elections. The Congress has already earned the name that it is soft against terror

Rs 72000 per year cash dole to 20% of BPL families will enlarge the list overnight. Families would be divided and slums will spurt to get classified under BPL. Instead of cash dole, give 365 days employment guarantee under MGNERA.

One wonders what is this so-called Manifesto, and how does the manifesto of a Political Party fulfill the dictum/ systems that are prescribed in the Constitution, through the Preamble? The Preamble must set the tone for any Party ideas, such that all the Fundamental Rights are made deliverable. Now, let us come to the current (sudden burst) Manifesto of the Congress Party, wherein it is proclaimed that Rs.72,000 would be made available as Wages to 50 million working class. This needs a total of Rs.3.6 Trillion as disbursement. Unless we create a value addition to an extent of at least Rs.36 trillion (lowest minimum), how are we planning to service this huge amount? Using Tax jugglery cannot answer this, as all that the Government would be able to do is to rob Peter to Pay Paul.

After decades of experience in governance, if a party cannot present an implementable and pragmatic manifesto, it amounts to misleading innocent voters for pure electoral gains and not a commitment to better the nation.

Details in a manifesto are important. A society seeped in corruption, people are wary of promises in the manifesto that act as a spur for corruption. Given this fact, the NYAY scheme appears to be tailor made for corruption.