The Opposition parties on Sunday said that the Bharatiya Janata Party’s manifesto for the Lok Sabha elections does not talk about several key issues such as employment generation and minimum support price for farmers.
A minimum support price is the rate at which the government buys farm produce and is based on a calculation of at least one and a half times the cost of production incurred by the farmers. There have been recurring farmer agitations to press for a law guaranteeing a minimum support price for agricultural commodities.
The Congress said that unlike its manifesto, the BJP manifesto does not talk about the vacancy of 30 lakh government posts, the need to control inflation, restoration of peace in Manipur and inclusion of the tribal areas of Ladakh in the sixth schedule of the Constitution.
“We are guaranteeing Rs 1 lakh annually to women, your manifesto is quiet on that,” Congress spokesperson Supriya Shrinate said at a press conference. “We are promising 50% reservation in government jobs for young women, your manifesto makes no mention of it.”
She also said that the BJP government’s “flawed foreign policy” since 2014 had resulted in China entering Indian territory. India has failed to capitalise on world trade and foreign direct investments even as China was losing out on it, she added.
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The Congress also analysed BJP’s manifestos of the 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha polls to point out how the ruling party had failed in delivering on its promises.
“The BJP had promised in its 2019 manifesto that it will double the income of farmers by 2022, but the reality is that today the income of farmers has decreased and the debt has doubled,” Congress manifesto committee member Amitabh Dubey said. “They [BJP] had claimed to cover farmers under the PM Kisan Yojana. The truth is that the number of beneficiaries has decreased by 67%. The number of beneficiaries was 12 crore in 2019 and now it is 4 crore.”
The Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi scheme promises to give farmers up to Rs 6,000 per year as minimum income support. The scheme does not cover landless farmers, Dubey added.
The BJP had promised to provide 40 crore people training in market oriented skills in its 2019 manifesto. The reality is that only 1.4 crore were provided this training and only 17% students or 25 lakh trainees were able to secure jobs, Dubey said.
The Congress also said that the BJP had failed to deliver on its promise of improving education in the country. “According to the Ministry of Education’s performance grading index, students are performing 50% below learning quality,” he said.
Out of 10 lakh government schools, only 37 thousand have computers, the Congress said.
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Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Tejashwi Yadav also said that the BJP manifesto does not mention how the party plans to solve the problems of poverty, unemployment and inflation.
“How many jobs will they provide, how will they address poverty in states like Bihar, the manifesto has no mention of it,” Yadav told reporters on Sunday. “The manifesto only talks about superficial things. We all know what the BJP has promised and what it has delivered.”
The Aam Aadmi Party claimed that the BJP manifesto that takes pride in its Ayushman Bharat scheme has a budget less than the entire health budget of Delhi. Ayushman Bharat is a cashless insurance scheme for the poor that offers up to Rs 5 lakh for medical treatments.
The BJP has promised to include senior citizens and the transgender community under the scheme’s ambit.
Delhi minister Atishi questioned why the BJP has not promised to provide the minimum support price to farmers.
“They have betrayed the farmers by backtracking from its promise,” she said at a press conference. “The BJP has also betrayed the country in terms of education and health as well.”
She said that the Aam Aadmi Party is allocating more budget for education, as against the BJP government under which the number of government schools has decreased in the country.
Also read: Our series A Decade Under Modi in which Scroll takes stock of the Narendra Modi government’s performance over two successive terms in power.
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