BJP Manifesto 2019

My take on the BJP Manifesto and the holes that it is filled with

1. What Are The Issues With BJP Manifesto
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2. TheManifesto Itself
•Themanifestostarted with a lot of doubts
•Themanifestowasreleasedon8thApril2019justafewdaysbeforepollingforthe1stphase
begins. This was around a week after release of the Congress manifesto. To me, it seems like they
were waiting for Congress to launch their manifesto, examine public reactions to manifesto and
then launch their manifesto as a response to the promises made by Congress
•The manifesto was written in a hurry obviously and none of the BJP leaders who participated in
the Manifesto release event took any questions. Seems they were not prepared enough with
counters to any possible questions from the press.
•The manifesto focused on nationalism, patriotism, army and other such jingoistic areas, as against
concrete development plans for the nation. Even where there were reference to areas like
infrastructure, women's safety, agriculture etc., the document was replete with errors, grammar,
math and logic included.
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3. 2014 vs 2019 Cover Page
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CoverPage–KeyConclusions
1.Party in 2019 is all about
Modi …everything else
relegated to the background
i.e. other leaders, party logo,
core message etc. So, party
seems to have nothing better
to offer than Modi
2.Leaders don't run
organizations, people do.
Hence, if other BJP leaders and
workers don’t feel a sense of
belonging and empowerment,
they will never give their best
to the organization

4. Page No 3
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Key Conclusions
1.India was called a fragile five in global economy, at a time when India
was growing at a rate of more than 7.2% in 2014, which has now come
down to 5.2%. First big lie.
2.Mudra Yojana. Average loan size is about 28,000 rupees and as per
recent reports 99% of loans are NPAs. What there to gloat about then.
3.Middle class with taxable income upto 5 lacs need not pay tax. This is a
big lie.

5. Page No 4
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Key Conclusions
1.Indian government claims to have launched a crusade against
corruption, at a time when Mallya, Nirav Modi, Lalit Modi, Mehul
Choksi, Sandesariya Brothers all escaped right under the nose of Modi
with billions of dollars of public money
2.The reference to year 2047 raises a lot of doubts. Does it mean they will
not be able to achieve anything they have promised anytime soon.
3.Revenue leakages of more than 1 lac crores prevented has been
highlighted. That is a big lie as the figure cited in that brief is not a
savings figure at all. It is just an estimate of GoI’stotal annual
expenditure on “major cash transfers”.

6. Page No 5
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Key Conclusions
1.Amit Shahs statements are full of rhetoric and sweeping statements. No
concrete proposition anywhere in the page. Seems there is no data to
back up any of the wild statements on this page.
2.The electrification figure in page 3 is mentioned as 2.4 crore families. In
this page it is mentioned as 2.5 crore families. So, in a matter of 2
pages, electrification has increased by 10 lac families

7. Page No 6
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Key Conclusions
1.Amit Shah again talks about Mudra without mentioning that average
loan size is 28000 rupees and 99% of loans have become NPAs. Means
that the scheme was launched without adequate safeguards in place.
2.The constant reference to Congress and its inability is sickening. It seems
they want to compare themselves to all the mistakes made by Congress
in the past. They have nothing positive to reference themselves to

8. Other Promises & Issues Around That
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Why thisisafarce
1.Under Modi’s watch, small big combined, there were a total of 4500 terrorist incidents. In UPA1 & UPA2
respectively, it was 1104 and 3285 respectively. So, I don’t understand how a four fold increase in terrorism
incidents can be called as ZERO TOLERANCE TO TERRORISM
2.If India indeed had zero tolerance to terrorism, cannot understand how URI, Pulwama and Pathankot incidents
happened. In case of Pulwama, specific intelligence inputs were ignored and 44 CRPF jawans were martyred.
3.Defence spending as a percentage of GDP is one of the lowest in regime at 2.95 lac crores which is about 1.58% of
our GDP. Capital expenditure is 33% only which means just about 1 lac crores is available for equipment
modernization. This is exactly the reason why Rafale deal at 3 times the price is nothing short of treason

9. Other Promises & Issues Around That
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Why thisisafarce
1.Make in India Defence is a good initiative but it cannot be entirely for the private sector. Core technologies
always have to remain with the government. Hence, when it comes to crucial deals like Rafale local
manufacturing organizations like HAL should have been favored. Rather than that, Ambani Defense a novice in
aircraft manufacturing was blatantly favored.
2.Government organizations have to be on an equal footing. HAL was deprived of the Rafale deal and slurs were
cast on its reputation. If a government cannot defend its own organization, then it is indeed a sorry state of
affairs.
3.Self reliance also comes at a cost and some initial capital investment. The budget currently does not leave any
room for that or provide indicators. What it means is that all the development, if done, will be with private sector

10. Other Promises & Issues Around That
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Why thisisafarce
1.The government spent close to 200 crores on legal fees for fighting claims of defense personnel in cases of dues
and compensation claims.
2.Funds release to defense departments have been delayed many times leading to a situation in which defense
accounts had to put travel expense and other such claims on hold. This never happened before.
3.OROP was never implemented as claimed. There is enough evidence on the internet available to show you that it
was never implemented in the way promised. So much for integrity and welfare of soldiers.

11. Other Promises & Issues Around That
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Why thisisafarce
1.This is blatantly anti Muslim. If objective is refugee intake then how can certain religions be favored. Howwill
thathelpmaintainlinguistic,socialandculturalidentityofpeopleofNortheast,Isimplycannotunderstand.
2.Does it therefore mean that we will accept Muslims and Buddhists from Nepal who are in a minority there. The
government has therefore made their anti Muslim agenda amply clear

12. Other Promises & Issues Around That
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Why thisisafarce
1.At the time of Kashmir’s accession to India, Article 370 was one of the key agreement points for accession.
Repealing that act needs to take Kashmiris into confidence. It cannot be done in a haphazard manner without
consensus.
2.The shady objective behind this step is to destroy the native identity of Kashmir and make it a Hindu colony.
There is no evidence to believe that this step is meant for the betterment of Kashmiris or their lives.

13. Other Promises & Issues Around That
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Why thisisafarce
1.India’s agricultural budget at its peak in NDA regime is 57600 crores. If we combine rural development budget,
which on an average was around 1 lac crores in NDA regime, the maximum allocation would not be more than 6-7
lac crores over 5 years. Now, 25 lac crores in 5 years means more than trebling agri-rural budget. No vision or no
concreteness in the plans. Seems to be another Jumla in the making.
2.The crop insurance scheme is another scam which was assigned to Reliance Insurance in most parts of the
country. Not more than 20% of claims honored, leading to windfall profits for the insurer. As an example, soya
farmers in Maharashtra paid 173cr as premium along with state contribution, but only 30 crores worth of claims
were honored leading to a straight profit of 143 crores for Reliance in one crop alone.

14. Other Promises & Issues Around That
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Why this is a farce
1.There are just vague
promises without any
concrete thinking.
2.Its like we will do this,
we will do that but we
will not present a
concrete plan or atleast
minimum data.
3.Another Jumla in the
making probably

15. Other Promises & Issues Around That
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Why this is a farce
1.Another set of vague
promises like we will do
this, we will do that.
Again, nothing
concrete.
2.Fancy terms have been
thrown without even
understanding its
meaning
3.Digitization of land
records has already
been done successfully
by Southern states. So,
that’s nothing new

16. Other Promises & Issues Around That
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Why this is a farce
1.This seems to be a poor
response to the Congress
promise of a ministry for
fisheries
2.India's fisheries market is
worth around 3 lac crores
and 10,000 crores is 3.3%
of that investment at
best.
3.Point no 29 means that till now the government did not treat fisherman as equal members of the society and
Congress promise of a fisheries ministry made them suddenly wake up to the existence of fisherman …they will
be brought under the ambit of welfare programs which means that they were not under any welfare programs
before this. What crazy and convoluted thinking.

17. Other Promises & Issues Around That
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Why thisisafarce
1.Its almost two years since GST launch. It is still not perfected means it was poorly conceived in the first place. If
in two years, they could not perfect the model, I am sure they will not be able to do anything in 20 years.
2.GST claim reversals are not even being done in 180+ days. This is putting tremendous pressure on the bottomlines
of organizations and affecting their cash flows.
3.Small traders are forced to engage accountants to complete their GST work leading to extra cost burden.
4.GST non compliance rate has increased three fold from 2017-2018 to 2018-2019. Cannot understand how
government has met or exceeded its collection targets with such high levels of non compliance

18. Other Promises & Issues Around That
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Why thisisafarce
1.Means an investment of 20 lac crores on an average every year. Currently it is around 4.8 lac crores on an
average. Means more than quadrupling of investments. Another Jumla in the making
2.With banking sector having NPAs of upto 7 lac crores, where will the funding for this sector come from. Which
bank will lend to this sector as it is what has brought banks down. ILFS is one prime example of a failure in this
regard.

19. Other Promises & Issues Around That
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Why thisisafarce
1.The MSME sector which got wiped out almost due to demonetization will find the promise of of 1 lac crores by
2024 very little very late. This sector contributes 37% to India’s GDP and the promise of lac crores by 2024 means
support of 0.3% of GDP. So, 0.3% credit as percentage of GDP for a sector that contributes 37%.
2.Technology and AI etc. is the next step. The government needs to make life easy for them first so that they get a
fair chance of resuscitating themselves

20. Finally
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I can go on and one with the manifesto. It is so full of holes that I will need to spend several days to identify each
hole and reply to it.
It is directionless, poorly conceived and poorly calculated. Numbers have arbitrarily been thrown without even
checking the current situation and what are they promising as an alternative. In many ways it seems to be a reactive
manifesto wherein some of the promises of Congress taken and amplified to incredulous levels. Such a manifesto is
destined for failure as the government has not displayed any intention or plan to execute what has been promised.
If people vote for BJP on the basis of this manifesto, they can look at another five years of Jumlebaaziand further
destruction of Indian economy. I have not even touched the social aspects of the manifesto which talks about things
like Ram Mandir etc. If Modi wanted to indeed build a Ram Mandir, he would have brought an ordinance long back.
He just wants to keep the pot boiling so that he can milk it for political benefits as and when the need arises.
I am definitely not going to vote for BJP on the basis of this manifesto. If you are planning to, please don’t.