A week ago, the
Congress party made quite a splash with its Lok Sabha poll manifesto that made several mega promises such as giving Rs 72,000 each to five crore poor families under the 'NYAY' scheme, filling up 22 lakh government vacancies, bringing a separate budget for farmers and fixing a single moderate GST rate.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) released its much-awaited manifesto today that did not decide to counter Congress' poll sop of Nyay. It has no big-bang welfare scheme against expectations that
BJP would answer the Nyay scheme of the Congress in its manifesto. In fact, the BJP was the first mover in the game of election sops when it declared its big-bang welfare scheme, PM Kisan Samman Nidhi Yojana, in the Interim Budget 2019. Critics of the party had seen the Budget as a pre-poll shower of sops.
However, the BJP manifesto does make some concrete and significant promises such as interest-free Kisan credit cards, doubling the number of national highways, a warehouse network across the country and Bharatmala 2.0 to support the states to develop state road network. The most significant promise from voters' viewpoint could be pension for small and marginal farmers after the age of 60 years. The manifesto shows fiscal restraint by avoiding to answer the Congress with bigger sops.
The manifesto strikes hard postures on J&K and external security, a nod to the core agenda of the party. It also keeps the party's agenda of economic resurgence at centre. "We aspire to make
India the third largest economy of the world by 2030. This implies that we commit to make India a $5 trillion economy by 2025 and $10 trillion economy by 2032," said
Rajnath Singh, who headed the committee that prepared the manifesto, said.