Amidst high drama, the NDA today released its manifesto for the upcoming Bihar elections. In what could be the shortest press conference ever, its leaders posed for a photo for a few seconds and left the stage, with Mr Samrat Chaudhary to do the talking.
Coming a week after the INDIA bloc’s release, the ‘sankalp patra’ was a poor copy of it. Coming from a body, in power for 20 years now, it was without any substance. A government vying for a fifth consecutive term, need not make promises and offers, it needs to let its work speak for themself.
Promising a crore government jobs in 5 years, is a laughable proposition, which never delivered a hundredth of it in 20 years. The promise of making a crore lakhpati Didis, is equally incredible when you are the most fiscally challenged state and the center in its 12th year is yet to deliver on any special package or status.
There are hardly any deliverables in the token gesture that the BJP has reduced the manifesto to. CM Nitish Kumar left the program abruptly, perhaps to evade being identified by such an absurd exercise. Moreover he is still not the declared CM face.
The conduct of the program, suggested that the manifesto has been orphaned, right at its inception. There’s no one to own up to it.
Promises of MSP and social security all beg the same question. Where were they for 20 years.
While caste and communal arithmetic may determine the outcome, the manifesto is a mockery of democratic accountability.
