Our party will lay out people's vision, says Congress MP Rajeev Gowda

The Congress governments in the three states will have to focus on welfare measures for those who have suffered the brunt of Modi's disastrous policies, says Gowda

Rajeev Gowda,Congress MP in the Rajya Sabha has a PhD in public policy from Wharton Business School and heads the Congress's research cell. He has been on the RBI board and has taught at the Indian Institute of Management, Bengaluru. In this interview to Aditi Phadnis, he underlines what the Congress's public policy priorities will be in the state where it has been elected to power. 

Edited excerpts:

Much has been said about agrarian distress and how it led to the defeat of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in three states. But in Mandsaur, the place where it all began, the Congress has lost heavily. In Telangana despite farm distress, the TRS has swept the state. how should we look at this?

Farmers across the country have realised that it is the Modi sarkar which unleashed misery on them through notebandi and betrayed the farmers on promise of increasing MSP for four full years. The entire country has witnessed the farmers' marches in Delhi and Mumbai. 

In the Malwa region, the agricultural powerhouse of Central India, field reports confirm that farmers feel they experienced “acche din” under Dr Manmohan Singh. In contrast, the last four-and-half-years under PM Modi have been disastrous for farmers. 

Look beyond Mandsaur to the Malwa belt. Here, the Congress bounced back significantly snatching 13 seats from BJP, despite losing 7 seats in Mandsaur.  BJP wrongly assumed that the Mandsaur incident would not have a spillover beyond the region and pumped in tremendous resources in the 8 seats in Mandsaur. Moreover, it seems like rebel candidates have played spoilsport for Congress here. 

Overall, in the three states Congress won every second rural seat, whereas BJP could retain only one third of its rural seats. BJP lost a whopping 184 rural seats in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhatisgarh. This is a trend that we saw emerge in Saurashtra in Gujarat. Is this is not a clear indicator of anger against the BJP in rural India? 
 

In Telangana, TRS managed to stave off anti-incumbency. From initial reports, it seems like schemes like Rythu Bandhu may have alleviated farm distress to some extent. Telangana sentiment may have also overtaken other factors. 

A part of the problem relating to agriculture is procurement, which is a politically very sensitive issue. What is the Congress perspective on procurement — beyond the Swaminathan Committee's recommendations on price fixation?

Fixing procurement needs a significant long-term effort. It needs massive investment in storage and transportation.We cannot have one size fits all solutions in highly diverse agro-climatic zones. We have to invest in agro-processing industries locally and ensure significant value addition at or closer to the farm gate. At the same time, we need to create efficient internal and global market linkages. Our export and import policies for agricultural commodities need a complete relook. 

In Telangana, welfarism won the day. We have seen this theme winning the elections repeatedly for leaders like Jayalalithaa. In Rajasthan, the previous Congress government took a lot of steps relating to welfare: Free medicines, for instance. What are the other big welfare gaps, which, in your view, the Congress must try and fill?

The Congress governments in the three states will have to focus on welfare measures for those who have suffered the brunt of Modi’s disastrous policies like demonetisation and hasty goods and service tax. That is, we have to respond to the pain of farmers and farm labour, unemployed youth, and small and medium businesses. We will significantly increase public investments in education and health and ensure massive improvements in our Human Capital. It is high time that we invested in India’s greatest resources, our people. 

In Karnataka, you are in a coalition with Janata Dal Secular. Doesn’t this cramp your style?

Not at all. We share a secular worldview and a concern for farmers and other disadvantaged communities. The coalition government is substantially carrying on from the excellent work done by the Siddaramaiah-led Congress government. We are already working closely together (in the recent by-elections that we swept) and are looking forward to defeating the BJP in the Lok Sabha elections.

The Congress now is in power in a respectable number of states and has  acquired political scale so it can use them to roll out some innovative policies and schemes related to education, the social sector and industrial development. what are the ideas you have in mind?

The Congress President has made it clear that apart from tackling the crisis in the farm sector and unemployment, investing in education and health will be the key focus of Congress governments. 
 

In the health sector, we need to recruit not only doctors but a large number of paramedics, nurses, community health workers and midwives at competitive salaries. This will be a three-pronged strategy of massively expanding education, recruitment and training.
 

We need to empower our teachers, including those who are being inhumanely exploited as adhoc teachers. We need to ensure that no child is left behind. Everyone must have access to high quality education at all levels. We need to massively invest in technology tools in vernacular education.We must bridge the digital divide in education.
 

Fair access to credit, infusing appropriate technology, incentivising apprenticeships and employment will remain central to industrial development. We will also need to undo the Modi government’s tax terrorism and simplify GST. 

A budget is coming up. What would you like to see in the budget? What would be the Congress priorities if you were finance minister?

We hear that the government is moving away from established convention, and is presenting a full-fledged budget, months before going to Lok Sabha polls. They should have presented a vote-on-account budget and not hemmed in the next government to their plethora of jumlas. 
 

They are trying their best to arm twist the Reserve Bank of India into transferring a significant part of its resources to bail out Modi and Jaitley after four-and-a-half-years of sheer incompetence. All this does not augur well for the financial health of our economy. We hope better sense prevails atleast now. Foreign investors and markets are watching recent developments with concern.
 

As for the Congress party’s priorities, we are going around the country conducting manifesto consultations with a range of stakeholders and the public. Our party will lay out the people’s vision for India in our manifesto.