Nearly a week after Congress’ manifesto came out, BJP has released its ‘Sankalp Patra’ today as well. While there are many differences in the promises outlined in the manifestos of these two national parties, one difference is quite stark. While Congress boasted about its manifesto being prepared by some ‘renowned’ names, BJP had completely crowdsourced the manifesto. In this regard, while Congress’ manifesto appears more like unrealistic and out-of-touch due to the fact that people involved in the drafting process are far removed from India’s ground reality, BJP’s manifesto is based on new India’s aspirational masses.
The Congress manifesto had the ‘elite’ members of economic and business fields under its drafting committee. The committee has Raghuram Rajan, the former RBI Governor of India, French Economists Thomas Piketty and Lucas Chancel, it has the Ex-Deputy Chairman Montek Ahluwalia of the Planning Commission, Abhijit Banerjee, Indian Economist, Mahesh Vyas who is CEO of CMIE and known business tycoon Kiran Mazumdar Shaw of BIOCON.
The BJP however took a different way in drafting the manifesto. Unlike Congress the BJP manifesto, is the manifesto of the people, for the people and by the people. The process of drafting the manifesto started months before. In order to entreat suggestions, the saffron party introduced a special website and phone number along with orthodox means like email and postcards. Further BJP president added that the party will send out 300 raths to go all over the country. These raths had tablets, through which one could give his suggestion. The party had also set up 7,500 boxes to collect ideas. Each state was given a 20-member team to collect suggestions.
The manifesto is drafted with suggestions of people who were reached out to. This announcement was made by Amit Shah in the “Bharat ke Mann ki Baat, Modi Ke Sath”. Amit Shah along with Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh launched the ‘largest’ ever initiative from the national capital. A total of 12 categories were included under which the electorate could pass their suggestions. These categories included good governance, women empowerment, youth and sports, inclusive growth, farmers, economy, foreign policy, infrastructure, and others.
Earlier, a manifesto committee was formed on January 6. The 20-member committed includes Union ministers like Arun Jaitley, Ravi Shankar Prasad, Nirmala Sitharaman, Thaawarchand Gehlot, Smriti Irani, Piyush Goyal, and Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi. Few other prominent faces are former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Bihar’s Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Modi, and his Uttar Pradesh counterpart Keshav Prasad Maurya.
The country saw People vs Party manifesto. BJP’s manifesto was the flag bearer of the people’s wished and desires whereas the Congress manifesto seemed like a beautifully decorated piece of fake promises. The elections will indeed be an important deciding moment for Indian Politics.