Poll promises

Congress could have offered a more progressive agenda

Election manifestos of political parties tend to offer a vision of governance that is often impractical. The Congress’s manifesto for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections fits this template. The manifesto suggests that the time for a radical change in the style of governance has come and that the elections present an opportunity for such change. But it is hard to spot the signs of radical thinking in this document. Rather than outlining a programme based on a coherent ideology, its proposals are either reactive, reversing initiatives by the ruling National Democratic Alliance, or problematic in terms of implementation. Termed “Nyay Patra” (Document of Justice), it offers five pledges for justice — for the youth, women, farmers, and workers, and for equity — and 25 guarantees, a riff on the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP’s) slogan of “Modi ki Guarantee”.

To be sure, there are some good ideas in the manifesto. Chief among them is the proposal to enact a law on bail that would incorporate the principle that “bail is the rule, jail is the exception” in all criminal laws. This is an interesting promise, since it was the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance that made the bail terms under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act so stringent as to be non-workable for the accused. Some of its suggestions for tax and economic reform are also welcome. Among them are the proposals to do away with the “angel tax” for unlisted companies that gain funding from angel investors and a law to limit Union cess and surcharges, which have increased substantially in recent years, to 5 per cent of gross tax revenues. More attractive for industry would be the promise of a “GST 2.0”, a single moderate rate with a few exceptions, doing away with the confusion multiplicity that has been the bane of goods and services tax. The party has also wisely desisted from mentioning a return to the old pension scheme. It has underlined its woke credentials by pledging to introduce a law recognising civil unions between couples belonging to the LGBTQIA+ community.

Against these progressive ideas must be weighed a raft of fiscally and socially imprudent proposals. Among the former are guarantees of a legal minimum support price (MSP), the issue that is the cause of the current fractured relations between farmers and the Union government, and is widely considered by economists to impose a heavy annual burden on the exchequer. A cash dole of Rs 1 lakh a year to women of poor families is similarly ill-advised. Though the party reckoned that the proposal achieved some traction in the recent Assembly polls, an open-ended payout such as this could impose a heavy pressure on government finances. It is also a pity that the party, having promised a new electoral dynamic, is falling back on old divisive caste-based politics. Promising a caste census and pledging to raise the 50 per cent cap on reservations for Scheduled Caste, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes is likely to roil existing social resentments at a time when formal job creation remains one of India’s key economic challenges as will the pledge to implement a 50 per cent women’s quota in central government jobs. In as much as voters take an election manifesto seriously, the Congress appears to have missed a chance to offer something more than a BJP-minus agenda.