As against the Congress-led UPA’s “confrontationist approach” at the Centre, if voted to power the BJP would engage in “cooperative federalism” where the inter-State council will play a decisive role.
The party manifesto committee, headed by Murli Manohar Joshi, has supported the idea of taking the State Governments on boards before formulating policies to deal with terrorism, communalism and law and order.
The manifesto would spell out the need to implement the Uniform Civil Code and advocate a fresh look at the Article 370 of the Constitution that granted special status to Jammu & Kashmir.
During a public rally in Jammu on December 1 last year, BJP’s Prime Ministerial candidate, Narendra Modi had triggered a debate by raising the question whether the article has “benefited” the common man or not.
Sources told The Pioneer that National Development Council (NDC) “would be given a key role in re-fashioning Centre-States ties”. They said the party manifesto would promise active, creative and constant engagements of the States and work on devolution of power as per Sarkaria Commission report. Prime Minister headed NDC and Inter-State council have Chief Ministers of all states and union territories and central ministers and members of planning commission as their members.
“Cooperative federalism” would seek to end states “excessive dependence” on the Central Government which is being “exploited” to serve narrow political objectives at the cost of national welfare.
“ In last 10 years, there has been a problem of attitude with UPA rule... arrogance to be precise, we would try to undo it in the best possible way...”, said a top leader who is part of the drafting panel .
“Ours would be an attitude of cooperation instead of confrontation”, he said drawing attention to the Centre-state problems over last one decade since 2004, post-NDA rule.
The Planning Commission would fall from its current high standing and may be abandoned by the BJP, if saddled at the Centre. All taxes will be simplified with a gradual transformation to “a single tax regime”. Similarly, complex laws would also be comprehensively done away “with simple laws empowering common man” would be put in place on an urgent basis.
Commissions would be set up with a short time-frame work out stated tasks in the 2014 manifesto.
Construction of Ram Temple and ban on cow slaughter would continue to be part of the party’s manifesto. “ Implementation of all sensitive issues would be done in a spirit of re-conciliation”, sources said. While stressing on ‘cooperative federalism’, Dr Joshi may revisit 2009 Manifesto prepared by him and incorporate views expressed by Modi. According to Modi, cooperative federalism means decentralisation of power and not necessarily equal sharing of governmental responsibilities between federal, State and local agencies and institutions and increasing “role of citizens” in governance.
Modi has strongly spoken against concentration of powers in Delhi and sought to have governance through “a network of district and provincial administration like in the ancient India.
The tendency under the UPA government to legislate in the domain of law and order, a state subject, would be decisively reversed by the BJP, sources said.
This would be a BJP’s way of rejecting the idea of setting up an agency like National Counter-Terrorism Centre (NCTC), as proposed by P Chidambaram as union home minister after Mumbai terror attack in 2008. The NCTC has since been virtually scuttled by states, opposing extraordinary power vested in the proposed anti-terror body. Headed by Joshi, the panel also includes party president Rajnath Singh, Modi and senior leaders like Jaswant Singh, Yashwant Sinha, Prem Kumar Dhumal, Sushil Kumar Modi, Jual Oram, V K Malhotra, laxikant Chawla, Satpal Malik, Bandaru Dattatreyya, Bijoy Chakravarty, Dr Satyanarayan Jatiya, Shahnawaz Hussain,
Dr Mahesh Chnadra Sharma, Kanchan Gupta and Shanmukhanathan.