The election season is round the corner in the country with every political party focusing to win maximum number of seats. In order to fulfil the target, the political parties resort to some easy tactics to win seats. Parties use catchy slogans and poll promises to woo the voters in the election season. Apart from that, another strategy is to poach potential leaders from the rival parties and field them as own party candidates. This is mainly done to damage the rival party as the defecting leaders also bring a chunk of supporting voters.
This election season too is not different. Ruling party BJP is banking on catchy slogans to beat the anti-incumbency. In 2014 election season, the saffron party’s slogans were “Abki Baar Modi Sarkar” (This time it is Modi government) and “Acche Din Aayenge” (Good days would come).
This time BJP led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi is heavily using the slogan “Main Bhi Chowkidar Hoon” (I am also the watchman) coined by Modi himself. This slogan is to counter Congress president Rahul Gandhi’s jibe on Modi — “Desh Ka Chowkidar Chor Hai” (The watchman of the country is a thief) — relating to the alleged corruption in buying the Rafale jet planes. Already, the slogan “Main Bhi Chowkidar Hoon” has become popular with PM Modi himself using it in his poll rallies.
In fact, Modi is countering Rahul’s jibe in his own way by taking the slogan to the ground level to make it more popular as he did in 2014 election campaign when Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar digged Modi as a “Chaiwallah” (Tea Seller). Aiyar’s comment then proved to be a fodder for Modi who milked it in his advantage by ridiculing the Congress party as the party of elitists who are intolerant of poor people.
It helped Modi then to win the hearts of the poor sections of the country. Modi is hoping to repeat the same in 2019 by portraying himself as the watchman who strongly has been guarding his country since his assumption to power in 2014. ‘Main Bhi Chowkidar Hoon’ has become a popular slogan this election but the truth is real chowkidars continue to live a life with a very low salary — even less than a meagre amount of Rs 6000 with no leave or weekly off.
On the other hand, the opposition Congress party which was lagging behind the BJP in the early round of the campaign tried to score a lead ahead of BJP by promising to implement Nyuntam Aai Yojna (Minimum Income Guarantee) if the party comes to power. The scheme abbreviated as NYAY will provide Rs 6000 per month to the 20% poor people of the country — which means Rs 72000 per year to 5 crore poor families.
As soon as the scheme was announced by Rahul Gandhi in a press conference, the NYAY scheme started dominating the headlines and the election gossips. The ruling BJP attacked the Congress by simply calling it as an election stunt with Finance Minister Arun Jaitley reminding the slogan of “Garibi Hatao” (Remove Poverty) by then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in 1971 election campaigns which assisted the Congress to win elections but her government failed to eradicate the poverty.
Jaitley dismissed the NYAY scheme as a political bluff and a continuous tradition of the Congress party to lure the poor through hollow promises. Nevertheless, Congress seems to gain some political mileage from the NYAY scheme as the party has been in the news for failing to stitch alliances in Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Delhi and also for political goof ups to counter BJP’s nationalism — especially after the Balakot air strikes.
However, it appears that the scheme is actually aimed to win elections rather than to benefit the poor. That’s why the Congress party is evading questions about its implementation. Already, the government of India spends Rs 3.34 lakh crore for various subsidy programmes. The NYAY scheme is estimated to cost Rs 3.6 lakh crore which would raise the money to be spent for subsidies to Rs 6.94 lakh crore — which is not feasible to implement.
To implement it, the money for other running subsidy schemes has to be reduced — which would betray the poor — and most probably taxes have to be raised — which would be a burden on the middle class. Obviously, in election season optics matters more than logics and with the help of NYAY scheme, Congress is trying to bring winds in its favour.
Lastly, election seasons are not completed without the stories of defections of political leaders from one party to the other. One of the major defections that attracted headlines is AICC spokesperson and Sonia Gandhi’s close aide Tom Vadakkan’s leaving the grand old party to join the BJP. The other defection which stole the limelight is the entry of Jaya Prada, who was the leading actress of Telugu and Hindi cinema in the 70s and 80s, in the BJP after having stints in the Telugu Desam Party, Samajwadi Party, Rashtriya Lok Manch and Rashtriya Lok Dal.
Jaya has been nominated by BJP for the Rampur Lok Sabha seat of Uttar Pradesh. Another defection which grabbed eyeballs is the re-entry of 91 year old Sukh Ram Sharma, the former Congress Union minister in the PV Narasimha Rao government who was expelled by Congress for corruption in a telecom contract, along with his grandson Aashray Sharma, who has been given ticket by the Congress for the Mandi Lok Sabha seat of Himachal Pradesh. The veteran leader, who earlier formed the Himachal Vikas Congress only to ally with the BJP and then later merging his party into the Congress, had joined BJP two years ago just ahead of the Himachal assembly polls.
These are just a few examples of defections out of the many. Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Odisha, Telangana are some of the states which are making headlines due to party desertions by leaders — especially Telangana and Odisha. This defection trend reveals that principles and ideologies are a just a piece of paper for the politicians.
Amid these slogans, promises and defections, the major issues — corruption in bureaucracy, price rise, farmers’ suicides, unemployment, lack of quality education and health infrastructures, pollution of air and water etc — take a back seat which are otherwise only wrapped up by poll promises in the party manifestos!
Sagarneel Sinha is freelance journalist. Views are personal.