BJP’s Gujarat Manifesto: You Can’t Deceive All the People, All The Time

Hours before polling for the first phase of Assembly elections was to start, the BJP manifesto for Gujarat was released by two Union ministers in Ahmedabad on 8 December. Leaving aside the issue of how the party could carry out campaigning for 89 seats (out of total 182) without any public commitment in the form of a manifesto, the 20-page document is testimony to its failure to deliver on promises made five years ago. It is also proof of the Party’s habit of using statistics at will, even if they need to be altered to suit the immediate interest.

Referring to the manifesto Union finance minister Arun Jaitley, who was releasing the manifesto, said “Gujarat's GSDP growth is highest in India. In the last five years, Gujarat grew at an average rate of 10% amongst large States.”

But that’s not correct. The Central Statistical Office (CSO) at the Ministry of Statistics & Program Implementation is the only source for such data and according to them the growth in state domestic product was 10.9% (2012-13), 7.6% (2013-14), 7.8% (2014-15) and 9.2% (2015-16), based on constant prices of 2011-12, which is the accurate way of discussing such data, removing inflation from the increase. Data for 2016-17 is not even declared. So, in two years, growth was notably less than 10% as claimed. Yet, it is claimed that growth was 10% on an average. Clearly, there is a sleight of hand being done by the spin-masters of BJP.

More importantly, what use is 10% growth if jobs don’t grow, farmers’ incomes don’t grow, indebtedness rises, and marginalized sections become poorer? Perhaps, the BJP is only speaking to big industrialists and its cronies reassuring them that good, profit generating growth is assured for them.

Gujarat is one of the most industrialised states with a large industrial workforce. But the manifesto is totally silent on their issues including wages and job security. Remember, Gujarat has one of the lowest industrial wages among industrial biggies like Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu. In fact, apart from some noises about low interest loans for MSME sector – which is devastated by the GST - it has no plans for the whole of industrial sector.

The party’s manifesto – rather brazenly – repeats some of the promises made in its 2012 manifesto like building five million dwelling units, bringing fields in Saurashtra under irrigation and providing jobs to youth. This is arrogance at its worst, thinking that the people will not remember. Moreover, a vague wild promise like ‘jobs for youth’ is so clichéd and tired that no person can take it seriously. Jobs will be created how? How many? In what sector? Why were they not created in the last five years? There are no answers.

Another of the vague and wild variety of promise is “double farmers' income through various means, such as cheap fertilisers and seeds, better irrigation, proper Minimum Support Prices and direct access to food processing industries.” It also promises interest-free loans to farmers and talks of value addition for their produce. For a government which has been slashing subsidies and resisting increase in support prices to claim that they would do this now is difficult to believe. This seems like another admission of the sky high anger among farmers in Gujarat – and it is too late to rectify the dire situation through platitudes. The essence of what the BJP is promising to the farmers is – we will throw some money at you, hope that will be sufficient.

On the one hand, the manifesto promises to “eliminate jaativaad (casteism), sampradayvaad (communalism) and vanshvaad (dynastic politics)” from Gujarat. On the other hand, without batting an eyelid, it promises bigger allocations for the welfare of different castes and communities, especially the Koli and the Thakore communities. These are the two large OBC communities that the BJP is wooing to ‘replace’ the Patels who seem to have turned their back on the saffron party.

In order to perhaps compensate for the disastrous health care delivery system in the state, the party has promised to establish multispecialty hospitals in Surat, Vadodara and Rajkot and extending the medical insurance up to Rs.2 lakh to middleclass families. It completely omits rural areas from any assurance for better healthcare apart from promising setting up of “252 mobile clinics and government diagnostic laboratories”, which can hardly replace the existing crumbling health centers under the government system. Even for urban areas, the promises on this count are aimed at middle class families, with nothing for the urban poor. A wild promise of freeing the state of all vector borne diseases by 2022 tops off the BJP’s healthcare agenda.

In a similar vein, wanting to attract the middle class, the manifesto promises Metro rail projects in Surat and Vadodara, piped natural gas connection to every house and multilevel parking.

The manifesto lists a series of promises like “water connection and toilets for every home” and “pucca houses for the poor, labourers and nomadic tribes” that were promised earlier too and in 19 years of uninterrupted rule could not be implemented by the Party’s state govt.

Perhaps responding to criticism for the low enrolment in higher education in Gujarat, the manifesto promises free higher education for girls and special scholarships for poor students.

Finally, it can’t resist talking about its pet issues like building a “grand memorial” on the life of Sardar Vallabbhai Patel at Karamsad, strictly enforcing cow slaughter law (was it not being implemented earlier?), setting up a cell to help the Yatradham Vikas Board and Tourism Board coordinate with religious leaders, representation of saints from local “akhadas” on the board of Girnar Authority Board, and aid to local “akhadas” during Mahashivrati and Lili Parikrama. An overt religious appeal even as it promises to end communalism in the state?