Election manifestos are 5 year rituals with parties investing little time and energy knowing how seriously the voters takes them. But the problem is five years back, voters took the promise of Rs 15,00,000 in their bank account so seriously that the jumla continues to haunt the PM. There are number of instances of the UPA governments failing to keep the promises of 2004 and 2009. Despite all that, electoral process demand parties seeking mandate give their vision for the 5 years based on which the electorate shall act and hold the government accountable to the promise.
Its election time now and of course time for doling out. If the ruling party thought that it had delivered a master stroke by direct benefit transfer of Rs 6000 a year under the PMKSY scheme by drawing inspiration from KCR’s Rythu Bandhu Income Support Scheme to the farmers, a 12-times more bigger NYAY costing a whopping Rs 3.6 lakhs crores is the Congress party’s ambitious response sending their own MMREGA into background. The ruling party is yet to unveil their vision for 2019 to 2024 after the failure of achche din of 2014. Who knows, they may come with a more ambitious scheme then NYAY. It is said bad economics is good politics. Let us wait for ‘Sachche din’ where there is sustainable high growth for the actual redistribution of income from the rich to poor.
As each party tries to outdo the other in doling out, what catches the attention is the Congress party’s gumption to take a bold stand in promising a more liberal political order. The promise to reduce the army and CRPF in the Kashmir valley and entrusting more responsibility to the police in maintenance of law and order, the proposal to drop the sedition law, Review the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) and Disturbed Areas Act, holding police and district administration for negligence in case of riots and hate crimes, bringing in a law of privacy, doing away with criminal defamation, restricting the use of Aadhaar are certainly promises which are checks on the state power and must be welcomed as progressive proposals.
At times when an atmosphere of fear and hyper nationalistic fevour is being drummed up for electoral purpose, the Congress party has taken huge political risk by promising more freedom to the citizens. They have displayed rare political courage in promising more liberal political order despite knowing that the criticism would come based upon internal security the moral of the forces. Its a clear move to go on the offensive backed by crowd sourcing ideas from domain experts. The UPA-1 certainly brought many progressive laws from such crowd sourcing ideas and that was the usp of the UPA-I.
There is no running away from the fact that it was the Congress party that extended the AFSPA to Jammu and Kashmir, at a time when Justice Jevaan Reddy Commission called to scrap the obsolete law. Binayak Sen faced the sedition law during the Congress regime. Some activists now branded as ‘Urban naxals’ faced the brunt of state under the Congress rule. Most of the draconian laws are of Congress vintage. The sedition law has been used as a tool by all governments to suppress dissent. It is refreshing that the grand old party has now realised that laws need not be loaded against the citizens to make the country safe. It is good that a realisation has dawned that a humane government can also be provided without undermining national security. The first NDA government brought in POTA which the UPA did away with and the second edition of NDA did not require it. The Congress manifesto is that a conscious and a clear departure from the past and has emphatic pro people and democratic political intent.
The alterations proposed in the judicial setup also deserve a mention. The setting up of court of appeals and Supreme Court as constitutional court are welcome proposals. Their promise to establish a national judicial commission that would be responsible for selection of judges is long overdue.
Many of their proposals that did not make headlines including extension of right to education upto Class 12th, use of diversity index for social justice and appointment of equal opportunities commission and withdrawal of the infamous electoral bond scheme and review of the anti defection law are great moves. The proposal to make right to health care by doubling the health care spending to 3% of the GDP by 2024 disturbs the present government’s private insurance based model tom tomed as the world’s biggest medical insurance scheme is certainly a step in the right direction.
Most of the steps proposed as Congress party’s vision document are recommendations of the civil society groups. The principal opposition party has attempted to build a different electoral narrative. The Congress party’s move to have a participatory process in preparing the vision document bodes well for the political system. They have laid their road map. Being a crowd sourced document certain basic issues have come on the debating table. Poverty, unemployment, rural distress and health are always on focus but promising of a more liberal democratic order is what I believe is a major take away.
The Congress party is repositioning as pro-poor more welfareristic and promising a more liberal political order. Irrespective of who wins the issues cannot be ignored. Yogendra Yadav tells us that it is a right document at the wrong time. According to him this is not a normal election…. “this is capture of power through ritual that has all the external appearances of being a fair democratic election”. I hope he is proved wrong.
(The writer is practising advocate, senior faculty in law and political analyst.)
