What do election manifestos of BJP & Congress have for the new-age voters?

The Congress manifesto promises to remove any impediments, whether legal or administrative, to larger industrial production, while the BJP aims to position Bharat as a trusted global manufacturing hub

Election manifestos are in the news in this general election. Google Trends shows in the past two days there was a major spike in the searches for the term manifesto from India.

This is no surprise, given the sharp comments from the ruling BJP and retort from the Congress about what the manifesto of the latter contains.

It also breaks a trend. The interest level about manifestos in election campaigns of Indian political parties is often pedestrian. Not so this time. The same Google Trends shows the interest level is much above this time than that of 2019 or even 2014. Data beyond that is not quite reliable, as Indian internet penetration wasn’t significant.

Going beyond the immediate slugfest over the manifesto, it is instructive to read the documents of both parties, especially about what they have to say about the new sectors. Basically where do they look ahead? As the median Indian voter is one of the youngest cohort globally, it makes even more sense to parse the documents for these tips, especially the new-age sectors.

We particularly, therefore, look at three aspects of the manifestos with respect to where the young people will live, their energy needs and therefore work opportunities. As voters stand in the intense heat of India’s April and May, these are a troika of vision to which they will return often.
 

Broad vision

The Congress manifesto has an interesting paragraph about wealth creation. “Industrial and business policies and regulations will be designed to facilitate the production of goods and services in larger volumes and higher values. While production is important, productivity is equally important. Any impediment, legal or administrative, to larger production or higher value will be removed”.

The BJP iteration of this theme runs as follows. “We will make Bharat a trusted global manufacturing hub through a series of programmes including implication of regulatory processes, investment in infrastructure to meet the requirements of manufacturing hubs, bringing capital to the industry and investing in research and development”. 

In many ways, both these paras also encapsulate what the Indian economic policy should also be about. The thrust of economic logic would therefore seem the same for both parties towards liberalisation of the economy and more room for business to operate. The accent for less rules and more space for companies to operate is essential for businesses, especially startups to flourish.

Both these visions, if followed diligently, can deliver plenty for the Indian citizens. The big difference is in how they arrive there. Political manifestos cannot be a fully detailed economic document yet for the young voters, this is an important aspect to clarify.

Sectors – urban

Drilling down to specifics, the Congress manifesto tries to ring-fence all its promises for this cohort with tax relief or incentives. In comparison, the BJP manifesto is far more detailed and strikes out into new areas.

A striking example is the party’s promise to develop industrial cities “in different industrial corridors”. This is contained in the chapter ‘Global Manufacturing Hub’. Since the government is already commissioning seven such corridors, this can be a significant initiative and offers an explicit revival of backward areas.

While in the same vein, the manifesto looks in detail at 15 sectors running from pharmaceuticals, defence, critical minerals to bio-manufacturing hub and the more common place food processing, the cities or urban agenda is fleshed out with vivid details. These include water-secure cities, landfill free cities and a rather novel, centre-state-city partnership to work on “urban landscapes and improve the quality of life of urban citizens”. The promises are rounded off with an urban governance curriculum, ostensibly in universities to teach urban finance to environment and transport management. Each of these can expectedly strike a chord with the concerns of the young voters.

It is not that the Congress manifesto is short of some ideas. Its key promise in this respect is in the chapter ‘Federalism’. “We will amend the laws to grant more executive, financial and administrative powers to the directly-elected Mayor/ Chairperson for effective governance in urban local bodies. The administration will be accountable to the Mayor/ Chairperson and the Council”.

This has not happened for nearly three decades and is a most belated recognition of the challenge. Yet having reached here, in the next para it dilutes the promise by assuring state governments that it will make the existing 73rd and 74th Constitutional Amendments work better and make the “states to implement those provisions in letter and spirit and devolve funds, functions and functionaries upon the panchayat and municipality”.

Sectors – energy

A very important promise for energy in the BJP manifesto is contained surprisingly in another chapter ‘Global Manufacturing Hub’. For the first time an Indian political party has said it will “develop partnerships with countries having strategic reserves of (critical) minerals to secure our supply chain”. This will have profound implications for India’s foreign policy since the global locations of these minerals is becoming quite apparent.

The comparable para in the Congress manifesto is instead inward-looking. “Launch a strategic mining programme to explore and mine rare earths and critical minerals with the object of increasing the share of mining to 5 per cent of GDP and creating 1.5 crore jobs for unskilled and skilled workers in the mineral-rich states”, does not offer much room to examine the choices. Yet energy choices and within it, mining are most significant for the country to dwell on for this decade and the next.

Energy is a rather disappointing read in the Congress manifesto. The general thoughts are summed up in one para.

“As people move up the economic ladder, their needs are for better infrastructure and better goods and services… The challenges of the future include the changes in the global economy, advanced technology such as Artificial Intelligence, robotics and machine learning, and climate change. The future of our energy is ‘green energy’. We will mobilise the massive capital required for our green energy transition”.  This includes the interesting idea of “renewable energy schemes that will make the panchayats or municipalities self-sufficient in electricity as far as possible”.

Sectors – new ones

If it is the new areas where the young voters will presumably be interested, the two political parties differ sharply.

The Congress manifesto plans to set up a “National Economic Security Board under the NSC” which seems a fall back on the old Foreign Investment Promotion Board. Remember, the latter too was initially set up under the Prime Minister’s Office. It is supposed to work on disruptions in global supply chains, examine investments inward and outward and cybersecurity issues.

But stepping beyond the Congress manifesto is mostly about tax relief to spur business. So it promises an “employment-linked incentive (ELI) Scheme for corporations to win tax credits for additional hiring against regular, quality jobs”. On the same note is the promise to “eliminate the so-called Angel Tax which it described as “exploitative tax schemes which inhibit investment in new micro, small companies and innovative start-ups”.

Meanwhile, the chapter ‘Wealth Creation’ also has a promising para that reads, “Business enterprises will have the liberty to sell goods and services within India or through exports. All laws and rules that inhibit free and fair trade will be reviewed and changed.” But in the actual application of the promise is again a tax. “Shopkeepers and small retail businesses that face intense competition from online businesses will be given significant tax relief”.

And, how does the BJP fare here? The party makes another foray into skill development with the setting up of a digital university with “industry focussed free courses”, a welcome initiative. There is a promise for a Graphene Mission, a Quantum Mission, an Atmospheric Mission and finally an India-owned geospatial data registry. Tax relief is not mentioned even once in these contexts, and this is a remarkable position to adopt for a key political party in India. The young cohort seems to know that those reliefs are not often for those who need them and therefore have a disdain for it, which the party seems to have tapped into.

Looking ahead past the summer, it seems it is one party which is doing most of it.