Congress Party leaders have directly attacked the BJP manifesto by calling it a “maafinama” Ahmed Patel of the Congress has questioned the manifesto. According to him, the BJP manifesto does not include various important issues. The politician has accused that the BJP manifesto remains silent on matters pertaining to GST, employment and the weakened rupee.
The leader and the congress party however, seem to be making statements while being utterly ignorant of the manifesto’s content. The BJP manifesto has mentioned the issues that the Congress alleges were ignored in great detail. The establishment of the GST by the BJP has helped the country achieve cooperative federalism effectively. The manifesto has very well mentioned the increase of tax returns due to the implementation of the GST. The manifesto has mentioned that collections have increased about 50% in the last 3 years. The BJP manifesto promises continuous simplification of the GST. The regular engagement with stake holders is also ensured by the party manifesto. The GST scheme has worked well, and the direct benefits have been availed by the small traders who have registered under the GST. They can now avail an accident assurance of 10 lakhs rupees if registered under the GST, as assured through the manifesto.
The point about a weakened currency by Congress is argued over the rupee performance in Asia. In order to ascertain the true nature of the Rupee’s performance, it would only be fair to compare it with the performance of the currencies of other emerging economies, preferably some of India’s neighbours. In the period of January 2018 to October 10 in the same year, the Pakistani Rupee has depreciated by 18.68% against the USD, with the Burmese Kat depreciating by a rate of 16.66%. In the same period, Iranian Rial has depreciated by 16. 59%. Rate of depreciation of Nepalese Rupee was similar to the depreciation of INR in the same period, 15.55%. Some of the Asian currencies did perform better than Rupee but the general trend of considerable depreciation against USD was visible on almost all the currencies. For example, Indonesian Rupiah saw a rate of depreciation of 12.37% while South Korean Won depreciated by a rate of 6.18%. This nullifies all the objections that Congress members have put up.
The opposing Congress Party has put up the question of employment without probably going through the manifesto thoroughly. In most of the sections about MSMEs and inclusive growth the BJP manifesto has brought out the concern to increase the employment statistics of the country. The Technology Centres, other skilling centres of MSMEs and NSICs incubation centres alone would provide focussed and high level skilling to more than 6 lakh people per year. These innovations are bound to create employment opportunities in the country. The entrepreneurship and start-up initiatives would establish 50,000 new start-ups by 2024, another aspiring corridor for employment generation. Employments perspectives have also been flagged under the “Make In India in Defence” initiative under the purview of “Make in India”.
The Congress party instead of deriding the BJP manifesto should rather read and analyse it to understand what the country demands. The factual incorrectness in its claims about the manifesto are an absolute shame. The Congress probably has understood the strong BJP stance. It has no other option left but to bring out baseless objections to the released BJP manifesto.