Election manifesto: Where is Economics


The meaning of Economic development for we all economists is the improvement in the fundamentals of the economy. Each government should strive to increase the consumption, private and public investment, exports. Political parties in India are talking about the core economic development partially and spending time, money and energy on winning elections across states., where these are the office bearers should  spend less time on political issues and more time on economic issues. 
All parties unveil the election manifesto before the elections. The election manifesto ideally should be the agenda for the government that the party will pursue after the election from the party office.  Writing the manifesto is having the history of last 100 years in the western countries, where the agenda was more on social development. It is in 2001 Tony Blair in 2001 and subsequently wrote a detailed manifesto citing all sectors of society in particular health, Education etc. Indian political  parties  have released the election manifesto from way back in 1950's, however, the similarities differences in the  manifesto is to be analysed and discussed. Unfortunately, the common man doesn't analyse the economics side of manifesto before voting. Ideally members are to be elected based on the manifesto and the party politics should be considered as secondary variable. Indian elections are going far  a way from the idealistic situations. Surprisingly, many people are following the elections, (Tweeter has handled 30 lakhs plus tweets in two days of election results of Karnataka is the witness to that) Karnataka election and the voting pattern is the best example to prove that manifestos are not viewed seriously. 
All parties in India, including AAP, BJP and INC always writes about Economic Development, Health care, Primary education etc. AAP writes clean India making India Corruption free, INC adds Quality before health care, BJP always talks about tax terror. All party promises to fight corruption and price rise. Where is the agenda of sustainable economic development is a million dollar question. 
All the election manifesto and the political speeches were heavily intended to political variables like caste, blaming the opposition for non development, emotional intelligence with the district concerned instead of economic development. 
The question to ponder  is should we vote based on election manifesto? Are we voting for economic development? Are we asking right questions regarding economic development ? is there any need for adding economic policies in the manifesto? Shouldn't political party give us complete plan of financing the freebies mentioned in the manifesto? many more to ponder in next blog... 

Comments

  1. prof.sudhir gavhaneMay 17, 2018 at 11:14 PM

    Very nice analysis. I appreciate

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ashish JoshiMay 18, 2018 at 6:29 AM

    You're right. Economics should be the first criteria for voting. In case of BJP, what they say and what they deliver is completely opposite. With the previous govt, we did have corruption no doubt, but we had a world class economist leading the country, who saved us from the recession and kept fuel prices in control. If we see the graphs of exports, it has continually dropped since 2014 in spite of heavy marketing of MakeinIndia. The farmers are in worse situation than ever before. Interest rates on deposits are lowest. The real estate sector (largest employer in the country), is in doldrums. All this because we have a government focused on non-economic issues such as religion, caste and language.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Dr. Haridas ShailashreeMay 18, 2018 at 10:31 AM

      True. Unfortunately, economics discussion beyond price rise and FDI will not fetch votes in India.

      Delete
  3. sgdMay 18, 2018 at 10:12 AM

    Interesting article, my understanding from a common man's perspective is what will I get it directly is important for individual. So those who are going out to vote majority people are not bothered what happens to economy. I will not blame them since it's ultimately comes to what's in it for individual... Like whether tax is increased or vice versa.. prices of regular items over the period.

    Now talking about growth of indias economy really don't know where we are in terms of it may bebe G only know what this GDP is how this is calculated by economist....atleast one positive I have seen now is corruption is probably is not seen.... May be it has not happened or its still time for scandals of last 4 years to come out to public. Another positive I have seen is due to multiple social media tools govt got some chance to become transperant may be it's helping... Now I am not sure what numbers they are are right or wrong but atleast it's a very good platform.

    In general I think it's still in flux what individuals got and what they will got get in future is still, I see lot of increase in taxes with some transperency.

    My 2 cents, not sure how relevant these with blog.

    ReplyDelete

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