Udayan Hazarika
(The writer can be reached at udayanhazarika@hotmail.com)
Now that the election time is almost over, the parties are busy taking stock of their deeds and misdeeds during the whole process of the elections. For most of the political parties, the election manifesto was not a well thought-out plan. It was drafted hurriedly without looking into the ground realities. This happens in case of the ruling party also. They have not conveyed the voters a full-fledged conventional manifesto. What they presented is a list of ten statements which are pledged by the party and they called it Sankalpa Patra. A pledge is equivalent to a promise – and hence these are the promises that the party has made before the voters. Of the ten pledges three are crucial in nature which we will take up in the succeeding paragraphs one by one. But before that we may also look into what we may call a prologue to the promises which are pronounced in the form of commitment of the party. The party committed that it will preserve sabhayata of Assam secure suraksha and induce vikas – or development of Assam. Last time also, there were similar commitments from the party in the form of preserving or restoring Jati Mati and Bheti which the party failed to translate into reality. With the party's engagement in protecting the interest of one section of the illegal migrants of Bangladesh based on religion within the State, they have exposed themselves that they cannot rise above the communal politics and Hindutva for them is nothing more than fanatically work for Hinduism.
From what has been explained by Shri J.P. Nadda, the BJP President while opening the Manifesto, it is to be taken that by the word Sabhayata as noted above, perhaps the party indicates Assamese sanskriti. In his words- "Sanskriti ki raksha, asom ki suraksha aur samridhi ke liye hom pratibadh hei". So we are to know what constitute the Assamese sanskriti? The party perhaps doesn't know that Assamese culture has a definite shape and it revolves round its constituting components which have come from communities having diverse cultural and religious patterns and which are the integral part of the great Assamese culture and undoubtedly it also includes the culture components of pamuwa musalmans which have great contribution to the growth of Assamese culture. During the electioneering, it was frequently reported in the media that a few BJP leaders have commented against the musalman communities – some again had gone to the extent saying that they do not require the musalman votes. This expresses their bitterness towards this community. It appears that the senior party leaders have not laid down any guidelines as to how not to spread such hatred among the people during electioneering. The silence from the part of party high commands only indicates that they also have consent to such idiosyncratic statements. With this feeling of hatred how the party proposes to safeguard Assamese culture is difficult to understand. Perhaps they have in their mind to isolate the components which they do not like to see within Assamese community. Already the BJP Government in the State will be remembered for their role in permanently rehabilitating the illegal migrants in the State.
Let us now have a look at the ten commandments of the Party. The first is to initiate "Mission Brahmaputra" to save the people from the impact of floods. 2) Grant assistance in Arunoday programme will be enhanced to Rs 3000 to 30 lakh people. 3) Over Rs 2.5 lakh financial support for all namgarhs, 4) quality education to children along with free education to all children in government institutions. Girl students will get bicycles from Class 8 onwards. 5) 'Corrected NRC', 6) to speed up delimitation to protect political rights of people. 7) work for self-sufficient Assam, 8) ensure job opportunities for the youth of Assam with which the state will become the fastest job creator state in the country. Over 2 lakh people will get government jobs of which 1 lakh will get jobs by March 31, 2022. The BJP also promised 8 lakh jobs in the private sector. 9) To promote entrepreneurship, Swami Vivekananda Youth Employment scheme will be launched to benefit 2 lakh youths 10) support more landless people through 'patta' system.
Of the above ten, three commandments will be discussed according to their importance. Preparation of corrected NRC is one among the big election promises that the party has made. We may recall that the government formed by this party during its last term (2016-21) was involved in the preparation of the NRC. It was involved in the exercise for preparation of NRC for more than four years' of its term under the guidance of the Apex Court. However, it could not take the advantage of its being in the helm of affairs. It never cared to take interest as to what is going on in the NRC office and whether the methodologies as laid down by the Apex court have been followed in toto. Later, just before the final publication, the party and for that matter the Government had objected that the Registrar has the names of illegal migrants. There was no concrete effort to substantiate this during the claims and objection stage. Despite the complaints by both Central and State Governments the apex court refused to reverify the 20 per cent of the entries rather declared the formation of NRC. Since August 2019 almost two years have elapsed and neither the party nor its Government took any initiative to restart the process of correction. It neither approached the Apex Court nor the Central Government to correct the lapses, if any. Millions of rupees have been drained out in the name of implementation of populist schemes which could be invested for restoring the process of NRC.
The next crucial promise that the party has made is the promise of a floodless Assam. This will be brought under the proposed "Mission Brahamaputra" which targets to minimize the losses caused by the Brahamaputra floods such as loss of lives, livelihood etc. On the technical aspect, it appears that the party is planning watershed management of the river Brahmaputra as flood controlling measure. The fact is that various methods have already been applied as a measure to contain floods including de-siltation of the riverbed by dredging. The issue was earlier studied by various developed countries but could not find a solution to the floods. Now the news that China is constructing a bund at the upper ridge of Yarlung Zangbo (Brahmaputra) would present a totally different aspect to the floods in Brahmaputra. In any case for livelihood management, in the flood plain areas alternative pattern of livelihood is a matter need to be studied urgently not simply with reference to damage caused to the crops but also the serious aspect of floods that paused a threat to the livelihood is the siltation of thousands of acres of paddy fields leading to increase in both houseless and farm less people.
Next in the target comes, making Assam the fastest job creator. The party promises two lakhs government jobs every year and eight lakhs in private sector. So in all, the party promises to create 1.8 million or roughly 2.0 million jobs in the next five years which would imply that there will be full employment in the State. During the last five years, the government could not create any significant numbers of jobs in the labour intensive MSME sector. It completed its task by simply filling up the vacant government posts and regularizing the ad-hoc or irregular appointments. At present the salary, wage and pension bill of the government comes to around Rs 2700 crore per month while the States' own overall earning per month is only Rs 2,300 crore implying thereby that an amount of Rs 400 crore per month is required to borrow every month to pay the salary bill every month. One can very well imagine what would happen when every year 2 lakhs of job seekers are absorbed in the pay roll.