From Jobs To Cow: Poll Promises That Weigh Heavy Ahead Of Gujarat Elections

Congress had a CM in Gujarat 27 years ago, in 1995 under the leadership of Keshubhai Patel. Who later joined the BJP.

The Gujarat elections are just around the corner and one thing which symbolically marks the beginning of election season is tall promises from political parties.

“Election promises are not made to be fulfilled,” Vilasrao Deshmukh, former Maharashtra chief minister, had once said.

This is more or less true to an extent but still, promises have continued to be an important element of Indian elections, irrespective of the party’s electoral status.

Let’s here discuss some of the promises various political parties have made to woo the voters of Gujarat till now.

Congress:

The Grand old party, which is in the process to reinvent itself after losing back-to-back elections and losing incumbent Punjab, to the comparatively new player Aam Aadmi Party early this year, is now eyeing Gujarat.

Congress had a CM in Gujarat 27 years ago, in 1995 under the leadership of Keshubhai Patel. Who later joined the BJP.

However, Congress managed to give a tough fight to the saffron party in 2017, when it clinched 77 seats out of 182 which is just 14 less than the magic number.

•  The GOP has pledged to provide regular government jobs to nearly 15 lakh youths working on contract or as outsourced staff in different State-run entities and departments.
• Regularise nearly 5 lakh contractual and 10 lakh outsourced staff.
•  Will not charge anything from people intending to regularise their illegal construction.
•  Reintroduction of the old pension scheme for state government employees.
• LPG cylinder at Rs 500 (instead of around Rs 1,000 now)
• Compensation of Rs 4 lakh each to the kin of COVID-19 victims.
• Loan waiver of up to Rs 3 lakh to farmers.

AAP:

The Aam Aadmi Party, which could not manage to get a single seat in the last elections and is often termed as BJP’s “B team” by the Congress is in full swing to build momentum. The irony is the mainstream media is projecting it to be a bi-party battle between the BJP-AAP and there have been arguments that the Arvind Kejriwal lead party could finish as a principal opposition in Gujarat.

Party’s national convenor Arvind Kejriwal along with star campaigners Bhagwant Mann and Raghav Chaddha are seen actively campaigning and getting a massive response in the state.

Other than its tried and tested so-called “freebies” scheme of health, education, water, and electricity, AAP has made several other promises.

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•  Daily allowance of ₹40 per cow to cattle-rearing families.
• Building cow shelters in every district.
• 8o% quota for local youth in private sector jobs.
•  Reintroduction of the old pension scheme for state government employees.
• Monthly allowance of ₹1,000 to all women above the age of 18 years.

BJP: 

The Bhartiya Janata Party is fighting on its home turf. The saffron party is ruling the state for more than 2 decades now. Although the BJP has not announced any promises as such rather PM Narendra Modi in all his rallies either counted on the achievements or laid foundation stones or inaugurated projects.

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Meanwhile, PM Modi is to lay the foundation stone for the C-295 aircraft manufacturing facility in Vadodara, Gujarat on Sunday. Tata-Airbus JV is going to manufacture the C-295 transport aircraft for the Indian Air Force in Vadodara, according to an India Today report. Till now PM Narendra has inaugurated projects of a minimum worth of 29,000 cr.

It is noteworthy, that the dates of the elections are yet to be announced and the above-mentioned are just announcements made during rallies.

It will be interesting to see how many of these will make it to the manifesto. Also, what will be BJP’s strategy to combat these attractive promises?