Tale Of Two Manifestos: Ruling BJP's Guarantees Vs Congress' Promises To Voters In Elections 2024

The Secretariat looks at the promises and pledges made by both parties across five key themes of its interest—digital India, sustainability, employment, urbanisation and geoeconomics.

Making The Digital Journey Inclusive

The BJP and Congress manifestos are full of promises of digitising India across key sectors such as education, defense, rural infrastructure, employment, agriculture, etc. While the overarching themes of these digital initiatives are similar, the promises themselves are poles apart.

The incumbent government wants to scale its existing schemes and initiatives beyond their current domain and see expansion of schemes like UPI at a global level. One of the top priorities of BJP would be to boost digital infrastructure in the country. Whereas the INC’s agenda is to address domestic problems at a grassroots level. The party also promises to review and amend ‘anti-people laws’ passed by the BJP-led government.

While both parties touch upon digital security threats, they don’t talk enough about securing Indian citizens' data - which is the backbone of a digital revolution.

The Green Agenda

Keeping in sync with the focus on global warming, both manifestos have paid due attention issues concerning sustainability, offering their respective visions and strategies to adapt, mitigate and evolve in face of the climate challenge.

From giving a big push to renewable energy to thinking afresh about water preservation, the concerns of both sides are similar on most counts, but the strategies and solutions they offer vary. Some key concerns also have gone unanswered.

The Burning Question Of Employment

Employment or lack thereof is a central concern for the electorate. The recent CSDS-LokNiti pre-election survey results revealed that more than 60 per cent of respondents surveyed across India have increasingly faced challenges in their bid to secure work.

While both parties stress on filling up current government vacancies, upskilling the youth, and strengthening the economy, it remains to be seen if the schemes add up as a panacea for unemployment. 

Tackling Challenges Of Rapidly Urbanising India

No elections in the past have seen urban issues get as much attention as they do now. Understandably, the manifestos of both the ruling BJP and its principal opposition, Congress, have had to address a fair bit of challenges arising from rapid urbanisation.

BJP talks about revival of urban green spaces and water bodies, development of slums and digitising land records, among others, while the highlights of Congress party’s list of promises include an urban employment guarantee programme, twin cities with green buffers and more power to mayors and municipal chiefs. Surprisingly, smart cities find no mention.

Tradition Of Consensus Continues

Both parties have given significant weight and thought to the conduct of the country’s foreign policy, which will drive India’s foreign trade and global economic engagement, making it one of the principal growth drivers. The two parties also pledged to expand India’s diplomatic network in line with its global economic ambitions.

While the ruling party in line with its stated objectives has tried to couch its policy objectives in more muscular terms, the grand old party has given more details of its vision in certain areas such as foreign trade, neighbourhood policy etc. However, more or less the foreign policy objectives of the two principal political actors in the country remain the same with nuanced differences.