Chidambaram’s sops will not win over voters
While the political overtones in the interim Budget which Union Minister for Finance P Chidambaram presented in Parliament on Monday are crystal clear, what is equally clear is that the Minister’s efforts at winning over the electorate which has drifted away from the Congress in a decisive fashion are not going to bear fruit. The people are clever enough to see through the ruse. Mr Chidambaram has unleashed a flurry of concessions directed at the middle class which has all but abandoned the Congress and veered towards the Bharatiya Janata Party. He has cut excise duties on a range of two-wheelers, cars and high-end mobile phones — all of which are objects of desire of a growing middle class. But it is too late for these sops to work. In the first place, they have come at the fag end of the Union Government's tenure to be considered as the regime’s genuine commitment. Moreover, these concessions do nothing to dispel the overall sense of gloom that pervades the domestic economy. With inflation hovering at double digits, economic growth stagnating at less than five per cent and food inflation continuing to make bigger holes into the common man's pockets, a reduction in the price of fancy cars and mobile phones is hardly going to bring much cheer — or votes. It can be argued that the drop in excise duties will trigger demand for these goods and lead to more production — and thus possibly more employment — in the sectors. But that is wishful thinking because the manufacturing industry will not revive by a mere reduction in excise duties; there are a number of factors that drive growth in manufacturing, and they have been in doldrums over the past many months now.
The Finance Minister has resorted to yet another desperate measure to win over a significant section of the electorate — that of retired Armed Forces personnel, by agreeing “in principle” to the long-standing demand of ‘one rank one pension'. Only months ago, BJP's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi had addressed a huge rally of pensioned Armed Forces personnel in Haryana, which former Chief of Army Staff General VK Singh too had attended. Here he had reached out to the gathering and reiterated his party's support to the ‘one rank one pension' demand. It is obvious that Mr Chidambaram has tried to wean this ‘vote-bank' to the Congress's side. It is not a coincidence that only a few days earlier, his party's vice president Rahul Gandhi had voiced his support (out of the blue) for the retired personnel. Interestingly, while the Congress has made a last-ditch attempt through the interim Budget to cut its looming electoral loss, it has failed to offer any tax relief to the salaried class and incentives to those that are engaged in the agricultural sector. Together, the two form a large voter base. Mr Chidambaram has no second chance to undo the damage.