Election manifestos: Has the Congress ceded centre space to the BJP?

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₹1 lakh every year to a woman member of every poor household. Even if just half the free-food beneficiaries are found to qualify for being under the poverty line, this basic income scheme would cost the exchequer over ₹8 trillion, 16.8% of the interim budget’s entire outlay of ₹47.7 trillion for 2024-25. Yet, how it will be funded finds no mention in its manifesto.

The Congress also dangles a legal guarantee for farm produce at minimum support prices based on the Swaminathan panel’s formula. This cost-plus method dates back to 2006, and had the party’s Manmohan Singh government deemed it worth being made a legal right, it would presumably have enacted such a law. Today, it seems like a hasty response to recent farmer protests that may burden the budget.

In another example, while the BJP’s promise to extend the Centre’s ₹5 lakh health insurance cover to everyone aged above 70 sounds like a sensible change in eligibility, given how many of our elderly folks lack cover, the Congress’s idea of a ₹1 lakh annual stipend for apprentices aged below 25 is another pitch without any explanation of feasibility. Broadly, the BJP agenda abides by the logic of fiscal constraints, even as its rival looks bent on using unrestrained cash handouts. If the Congress expenditure plan has not hit investor confidence, it is because its victory is seen as unlikely.

Still, UBS, a Swiss bank, has estimated that the opposition party’s proposals could cost 2-3.3% of GDP unless other spending is slashed. On social issues, the BJP remains the rightist party it always was. On economic matters, it has more or less taken over the centre space held by the Congress whilst in power for two terms till mid-2014.