Congress Releases 2019 Lok Sabha Election Manifesto
While an election manifesto in India is a kind of cheat sheet to make false promises and hoodwink the gullible voters, Congress has released its manifesto which is not expected to make any impact on its election performance.
By Rakesh Raman
As Lok Sabha election is around the corner, Congress party today released its manifesto with a slew of promises. According to the party, the manifesto has been prepared after a number of consultations with different stakeholders across India.
“आज मैंने कांग्रेस पार्टी का 2019 लोकसभा चुनाव के लिए घोषणा पत्र जारी किया। कांग्रेस का यह ‘जन आवाज‘ घोषणा पत्र, हिंदुस्तान के लाखों–करोड़ों युवाओं, किसानों और महिलाओं की भावनाओं और समस्याओं को आवाज देने की कोशिश है।पूरा घोषणा पत्र आप यहां पड़ सकते हैं।” Congress president Rahul Gandhi tweeted.
Last year, Congress had launched a manifesto website to take citizens’ suggestions for the Lok Sabha election. The website was launched by Congress leader and chairman of the party’s manifesto committee P Chidambaram.
The website – available in 16 Indian languages – gave restricted access to users who were willing to provide their personal details such as email and phone number before submitting their ideas for the manifesto.
A look at our new 2019 Manifesto website launched by Rajya Sabha MP & Chairman of Manifesto Committee Shri @PChidambaram_IN along with Rajya Sabha MP & Convenor of Manifesto Committee Shri @rajeevgowda. Send us your ideas on: https://t.co/jjOt3XJy0t#JanAawaaz pic.twitter.com/Ejf2ENx99p
— Congress (@INCIndia) October 30, 2018
While an election manifesto in India is a kind of cheat sheet to make false promises and hoodwink the gullible voters, Congress has released its manifesto which is not expected to make any impact on its election performance.
Earlier, the party president Rahul Gandhi had announced a 19-member manifesto committee. According to a party statement, the committee had the responsibility of countering the BJP’s undemocratic agendas through a manifesto which is truly for the people.
The party claims that its manifesto will focus on providing jobs to the youth, ensuring that the poor and marginalized are empowered, and it will try to undo the damage to the economy which the ruling NDA / BJP government has inflicted.
As most Congress leaders lack knowledge of the current political ecosystem in India, they fail to realize that a manifesto is a wastepaper which is not read even by the party members, let alone the voters.
This article is part of our exclusive editorial section that focuses on Lok Sabha Election 2019 in India.
A manifesto has no relevance for voters because it is observed that people who vote in Indian elections are mostly poor, uneducated, and ignorant who are cheated by corrupt politicians with their ad campaigns and false promises.
[ Why India Does Not Need a Prime Minister ]
While almost all politicians in India are corrupt – many are facing serious criminal charges – they have been winning elections by dividing voters on the basis of their caste, creed, color, and religious affiliations. Elections are also being won by bribing the voters, intimidating them, or by tampering with the Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs).
Then where will Congress use the manifesto that it has released? The party must know that only those politicians and political parties will win future elections in India who know the art of stealing voter databases and hacking EVMs.
In some areas where voters are highly educated, a proactive interaction with them can help a political party. But it is being observed that Congress lacks content and communication skills that are required to woo the educated voters.
All the communications of Congress are designed to criticize PM Narendra Modi – particularly Modi’s demonetization decision and Goods and Services Tax (GST) introduction.
Although Congress had raised the issue of corruption in Modi’s Rafale deal, it proved to be a damp squib as Modi and BJP have refused to acknowledge Congress rhetoric.
Educated people (who are less than 5% in India’s population of 1.3 billion) are fed up with Rahul Gandhi’s oft-repeated, monotonous speeches on demonetization, GST, and Rafale. Worse, there is no communications expert in Congress who could bring freshness to the content of Rahul Gandhi’s speeches.
As Congress workers also lack new-media skills, the party’s messaging on social media properties such as Twitter is not quite effective. The social media team of Congress also does not understand the different digital formats to deliver content to different categories of information consumers. Plus, social media qualitative impact analysis is another subject that Congress workers need to learn.
More importantly, Congress must know that no publicity is bad publicity – particularly for Modi. Instead of talking only about Modi and attacking his policies, the traditional party must reveal its own road maps to achieve targets in critical areas such as employment, education, trade, health care, corruption, and so on.
The Congress manifesto committee members were Manpreet Badal, P Chidambaram, Sushmita Dev, Rajeev Gowda, Bhupinder Singh Hooda, Jairam Ramesh, Salman Khurshid, Bindu Krishna, Selja Kumari, Raghuvir Singh Meena, Bhalchandra Mungekar, Meenakshi Natrajan, Rajni Patil, Sam Pitroda, Sachin Rao, Tamradhwaj Sahu, Mukul Sangma, Shashi Tharoor, and Lalitesh Tripathi.
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By Rakesh Raman, who is a national award-winning journalist and social activist. He is the founder of a humanitarian organization RMN Foundation which is working in diverse areas to help the disadvantaged and distressed people in the society. He also creates and publishes a number of digital publications on different subjects.
