Despite the first phase of polls just four days away, the BJP continues to struggle with its manifesto drafting exercise. With the top leadership wanting it to be a “to-the-point”, “crisp and doable” one devoid of all verbosity, shedding “fat” from the draft document is taking time, thereby, it is delaying its release.
“We are trying to trim it down from 60 pages to 20 pages to make it reader-friendly by doing away with all micro-level details in the manifesto,” according to sources in the manifesto committee, headed by senior BJP leader Murli Manohar Joshi.
BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi is understood to have instructed that the manifesto should be a “practical” one and should not be carrying history of issues or tracing events as has been the tradition in the past.
The delay has led to speculation if the party was still shifting and shuffling and working out convergence of opinions on key issues, particularly those concerning the economic sector.
Party spokespersons, however, attributed the delay to “non-availability” of top leaders in the National Capital on the same day due to their hectic campaigning schedule. Some of the senior leaders though categorically refused to guesstimate saying “let’s wait and see”.
A tentative date of April 3rd was unofficially given for the release of BJP’s manifesto, which is now changed to April 6.The party’s Vision document-2025, detailing a road map of country’s development for next 20 years, is also understood to be a bulky one running into 70,000 words.
The Congress had released its 49-page manifesto on March 26 itself. Senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh on Wednesday slammed the “delay” in the release of BJP’s manifesto, saying it reflects the deep personality clashes within the party which is not seeking a mandate for itself but for one individual and the country needs a party manifesto not “Modifesto”.
“Today, we are on April 2 and the BJP’s manifesto is yet to be released... At least, they should release manifesto for 33 minutes like Rajnath Singh promised BJP sarkar for 33 minutes before he was forced to change it to Modi sarkar,” Ramesh quipped while talking to newspersons here.
Noting that the manifesto articulates a party’s ideology, action plan and agenda, the Congress leader said since BJP is not seeking a mandate for the party and it is seeking the mandate for one individual “may be the BJP feels that a party manifesto is not necessary”.
“Congress released its manifesto on March 26 . We had hoped that the BJP would do soon thereafter so that there would be a debate on the manifesto. Now we are left with a debate between a manifesto and a Modifesto. What India needs is a party manifesto not an individual Modifesto,” said Ramesh, who was a key contributor to the Congress manifesto.
Taking a dig at the BJP’s “factionalism”, he said, “it is probably that Sushma, Advani chapter, Jaitley chapter and Yashwant Sinha chapter could not be put together in one document.”