Party manifestos: Nothing manifest about them

Truth be told, even the Indian National Congress’s (INC) manifesto for 2024—Nyay Patra (Document for Justice)—features only party president Mallikarjun Kharge and Congress Working Committee (CWC) member Rahul Gandhi. Apart from the curious fact that its cover features only Gandhi from among a constellation of CWC members, it also represents a departure from the past: for example, the party’s 2014 manifesto had photographs of other leaders.

Beyond these similarities of personality-based covers, the Congress and BJP manifestos provide insights into the strategies adopted by the two national parties, some divergent and others that tread common ground. The BJP’s strategy clearly tries to move away from the caste-class dynamic emphasized by the Congress and some regional parties. If the voter base can be imagined as a large matrix with vertical columns representing broad caste divisions, the BJP seems to be focusing on the horizontal bands—poor households, middle-class households, women, young citizens, senior citizens—that cut across India’s numerous caste-class distinctions. In contrast, the Congress makes the persuasive promise to conduct a nation-wide socioeconomic and caste census to “strengthen its agenda for affirmative action."

Interestingly, the BJP manifesto does not shy away from listing its welfare policies—direct cash transfers of ₹34 trillion, free rations for over 800 million people, free health insurance for over 340 million Indians and free cooking-gas connections for over 100 million women—but tries to keep it understated in an attempt to corral its traditional middle-class and trading community vote banks. The unease of having to balance accelerated welfare benefit transfers (due to the pandemic and continuing rural distress) with a simultaneous condemnation of opposition parties promising “freebies" (ostensibly to keep urban vote blocs happy) is palpable across the BJP manifesto. For example, it mentions the word ‘subsidy’ only once, that too while referring to ₹11 trillion disbursed for fertilizer subsidies over the past decade.

The BJP manifesto, on the whole, tries to showcase the government’s achievements over the past 10 years and burnish them by highlighting the misadventures of previous regimes. The Congress manifesto, in contrast, tries to focus voter attention largely on the BJP’s economic mismanagement and alleged autocratic tendencies. The results of a recent pre-poll survey by think-tank Lokniti-CSDS is likely to put this contest in a slightly sharper perspective.

The survey finds that while there are still many people satisfied with the BJP government’s track record, the size of this cohort has shrunk in comparison with 2019. In contrast, the number of people dissatisfied or unhappy with the current regime has crept up during the same period. Interestingly, the number of people who do not want BJP re-elected has also inched up. In 2019, the survey had shown that while 47% of its respondents wanted the BJP government re-elected, 35% were opposed. This year, the divide has been reconfigured to 44% and 39%, respectively. There is also a class divide in how various respondents have fielded the questions: while 62% of upper classes are happy with the government’s performance, dissatisfaction within the lower and middle classes seems to be rising. Unemployment, inflation and shrinking incomes are the three main reasons cited for not wanting to re-elect the BJP government.

While little is known about the survey’s sample size and composition, it is worth remembering that these survey responses may not necessarily translate into voting choices. It can also be legitimately asked to what extent the survey results truly mirror the general trend. But, strangely, both the manifestos have put a distance between the broad trends emerging from the survey and the promises being made. For example, the BJP manifesto not only papers over the current rural crisis, but also fails to provide any solutions. Even the Congress manifesto does not provide any sustainable solutions for improving farm incomes over the long term. Similarly, neither manifesto has concrete, credible solutions for tackling the country’s unemployment crisis.

Both the BJP and Congress, by using photographs of Narendra Modi and Rahul Gandhi on their respective manifesto covers, have willy-nilly converted this election into a battle of personalities, rather than making it a battleground for new ideas by challenging paradigms and encouraging meaningful debates.