Little focus on pressing social and econimic issues
By Nantoo Banerjee
The Congress party’s 2014 poll manifesto may remind one of Idea Cellular’s latest and instantly popular ad blitz — Ullu Banaoing or fooling people – recorded in the backdrop of the current election in which a group of young voters publicly embarrasses a political party candidate during his speech at an election rally with mobile phone video clipping that exposes him making exactly the same promise to voters during the previous election, five years go. The Congress’ 48-page manifesto, at best, reiterates its resolve to build an entitlement regime promising 10 crore jobs, healthcare for all, housing, pension, bank account for all, rural broadband connectivity, 10 per cent manufacturing sector growth, trillion-dollar investment in infrastructure and the fight against black money.
The intents are nearly the same the party propounded before the 2009 election, though at a lower scale. But, in effect, Congress achieved practically none. The net employment growth in the organized sector in the last five years was nearly ‘zero’ per cent. The manufacturing sector grew by 2-3 per cent. The GDP growth in the last two years dropped to below five per cent. Is the government promise of massive employment relates to slog, highly unpaid labour in mushrooming shiny malls, private security service, call centres, private road transport companies, courier services, massage centres and spas, small-time event management, nurse-ayah-domestic-aid placement services, etc.? The government’s earlier rural electrification, healthcare, universal banking and rural broadband programmes are running far behind schedule.
Congress leaders are past masters in the art of poll manifesto making. Other political parties are no match for Congress in such skills. The high decibel manifesto should lift the morale of the party and its poll contestants. At the end of the first round of the election campaign – before naming candidates, their constituencies and announcement of election manifestos – the field clearly belonged to BJP’s Narendra Modi and Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi. Both began their campaign early, almost two months ahead the poll schedule announced by the Election Commission. Modi might have pulled more crowd at election meetings than Rahul Gandhi had, but the latter has, so far, managed to score over BJP’s prime ministerial candidate in terms of verbal attack and making a point forcing Modi mostly on the defensive. Although BJP looks like being far ahead of Congress in the poll contest at this stage, yet, in all fairness to both the chief campaigners of the respective parties, the honours are even in so far as the total public communication part and media coverage are concerned.
From the word go, Modi has been rather on the defensive on 2002 Gujarat riot and his government’s role. His repetitive reference to the success of the so-called Gujarat development model has started sounding like a cacophony of discordant and meaningless mixture of words and statistical myths that stand challenged by his rivals such as Rahul Gandhi, and other poll warriors, including Mayawati, Jayalalithaa, Mamata Banerjee, Nitish Kumar, Mulayam Singh Yadav and Arvind Kejriwal, all prime minister aspirants in case BJP alone fails to cross the tally hump at 199. A good part of Modi’s speeches are wasted on responding to opposition criticism, more personal than against the party. He seemed be more reacting and explaining while his challengers have been happily throwing muds at him. Yet Modi exuberates big confidence as he never campaigns alone. BJP president Rajnath Singh has always been by him and so are other local BJP stalwarts. One wished Rahul Gandhi were also accompanied by Congress president Sonia Gandhi and his charming sister Priyanka Vadra to share some of his campaign loads.
Poll wars are not fought with manifestos alone. Words and gestures are even more important to boost the morale of party workers and supporters, woo fence-sitters and weaken the psychological defence of generally committed opponent voters. Unknown faces and their unfathomable mind that form almost 80 per cent of voters pose the toughest electioneering challenge before even the biggest of names and personalities in the fray. And, that make elections so interestingly uncertain where almost every popular candidate, including independent, harbours hope of victory until the progress of vote counts. Could Indira Gandhi ever imagine that she would handsomely lose election from her most favourite Rae Bareilly constituency in Uttar Pradesh in 1977 to Raj Narain, a socialist turned Janata Party candidate always making a clownish appearance in baggy clothes and green head scarf in election rallies? More recently, cold-susceptible Aam Admi Party’s unimpressive head-and-neck-scarfed Arvind Kejriwal, a political rookie, unseated suave, charismatic, hi-profile three-term Delhi chief minister Sheila Dixit from what was billed a very safe Congress constituency with a big margin. Kejriwal is hoping to do the same on Narendra Modi at Varanasi. Voters can never be taken for granted, not even by modern Psyphologists.
Until now, election campaigns are marked by personal attacks and counter attacks by key candidates. They must give way to well thought out and clearly explained political and economic agendas of contesting parties. The broad questions troubling every electorate’s mind are: how are they going to tackle the problem of infrastructure development and industrialization without large land acquisition; how will they control inflation; how and in which areas will there be new jobs; how will they control the growing governmental corruption and black money explosion; what steps do they propose to ensure compliance of corporate ethics, morality and governance; what are the social security schemes for the unemployed — urban or rural, educated or uneducated – and for senior citizens, industrial pensioners and disabled and making affordable reliable healthcare; and so on. The growing unemployment and inhuman treatment being meted out to industrial and farm workers and casual employees both by their private employers and the government, which has facilitated such an indignity by changing employment rules and labour laws in favour of employers, have been a major social scam. What about the quality and affordability of higher education? (IPA Service)