If you are talking of economic policy in the manifestos of political parties, there has not much underlying difference between the Congress and BJP in the last few decades although they always slugged it out as radically different options.

Economic policy parameters seem to have taken a unilateral direction since the reforms began in 1991 and reforms have only widened the areas. But of late there have been some hardening of stance in certain areas which might be of concern. The election manifestos of the two rival parties generally follow the same route excepting some of these diversions.

Financial sector is one such. The Congress manifesto promises regarding the financial sector in some ways only falls short of being catastrophic. It is full of promises, and promises and yet more promises.

The ideas are hackneyed and old stuff and often repetition of old concepts only. Take, loan waivers, presumably mostly loans from public sector banks. This is decades old started on the highest pitch by Janardhana Poojary.

The Congress had set a glorious tradition of “loan waivers” right from the days of infamous days when “loans melas” were introduced to the country and then followed the harvest of bad loans. Following in the same tradition, V.P. Singh, the destructive poet and genius of destabilisation, had accorded similar facilities.

Now Rahul Gandhi promises “Karz Mukti” in the manifesto, bothering very little to explain how it will be funded. Probably, being the scion of The Family, whose every child acquires the right to become the country’s prime minster at birth, he does not owe any one any explanation. At the same time, the manifesto vigorously attacks the problem of “bad debts” of the public sector banking system and the failure of the current government to set it right.

The manifesto repeats one old idea, so far pursued unsuccessfully by on of Congres finance ministers, Chidambaram, to amalgamate PSU banks. As f, that solves every problem. One has to remember the ghastly experience of merging some of the PSU banks earlier. The only constructive idea in the Congress manifesto in this sector is to create a vibrant corporate bonds market, something that is already launched.

The manifestos —both BJP and Congress— have however craftily avoided any of the still unfinished reform measures regarding, say land or labour or outright privatisation of white elephant public sector units. Nonetheless, the manifestos have laid emphasis on select critical sectors of the economy.

The priority is to build domestic industry and manufacturing base for both of them. While the Congress party manifesto talks of raising share of manufacturing to a quarter of the national product, BJP is talking of ushering in a new industrial age.

BJP has of course been emphasising manufacturing for a long time now. However, nothing radically different has happened. This is mainly because the land for industry issue has been side-stepped for some time now.

Significantly, both the principal parties’ manifestos have remained silent on the issue of land. It is anathema to talk about land acquisition for setting up industry. Without solving that question large scale manufacturing development can hardly take place. China could become the factory for the world because of the ease of acquiring land for seeing up greenfield large industrial units.

If at all, Rahul Gandhi has an unenviable track record of stalling advanced mining and other projects on the ground of land acquisition for these projects. He had stopped a large mining project in Orissa as he stated it would involve taking over land of some of the local tribes.

Both the rivals have put high importance on creation of infrastructure facilities to win the hearts of voters. BJP has promised a staggering $1.44 trillion investment for infrastructure creation, Congress has spoken equally large outlay on the sector. One again, land for large infrastructure projects could also become a critical question.

Farmers, numbering close to a quarter of India’s population, naturally are the object of attention. While Congress is talking of setting them free from all burdens of bank loans, BJP has already put money into their pockets. Additionally, BJP is promising a variety of sops for farmers and creation of facilities in the rural areas.

Will pandering promises really win the hearts and votes of farmers. They have been getting freebies and waivers. With those, their expectations are rising higher and demands strident. It appears that they are more politically savvy than the politicians suppose and cast their votes on considerations other than election promises.

As for employment, which has been a major failure of present government, the BJP manifesto remains silent while Congress has made tall promises which are counter-productive. Congress promises recruitment to the vacant posts in government, which even if fully implemented which will not touch even the surface of the problem of unemployment in India.

As a matter of fact, 92% of total employment is in the informal unorganised sector and it is these activities which need to get a leg up to keep employment levels high. The thrust of India’s employment policy should be to encourage numerous small units in dispersed locations and not concentrated in urban conglomerations.

The manifestos are somewhat bland documents, without containing any of the spectacular out-of-the-box thinking. Congress has continued to promise its Alladin’s lamp of Rs6000 per month of free money to poor families, as opposed to BJP government’s Rs6000 a year to the same category of people.

In today’s India these gimmicks do not add up to much and few are carried away by such promises or even by actual release of such grants. People want self-respect and self-sustained work opportunities. Not just drums off the table of rich politicians. (IPA Service)