With employment generation as the buzzword, skill development and vocational training will be one of the focus areas in BJP’s manifesto which could also see the promise of setting up a unique new Ministry or Institution for new ideas, innovation and research and development. Simplification of laws and speeding up of police reforms within a timeframe too will be stressed upon.
The BJP manifesto, likely this week, will aim at attracting new and young voters by promising speedy employment and “cheap education loan” to students. According to Election Commission data, around 2.3 crore 18-19 year-olds have been enrolled to vote, out of a total electorate of 81.5 crore voters. It also suggests that 12 crore people aged 15-19 at the time of the 2011 census are now eligible to vote in 2014.
BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi has drawn the Manifesto Committee’s attention to the need for vigorous employment generation for youth through vocational training and skill development centres, according to one of the members in the committee. This is to bridge the gap between unemployment and availability of jobs in the country.
“Techno savvy Modi has also advocated use of Internet for providing cheaper and quality education in urban and rural areas,” sources said.
The manifesto committee has been asked to include the suggestion of lok Sabha MP Anurag Thakur, who is also the head of BJP’s youth wing, for setting up a new ministry or an institution for new ideas, innovation and research and development, facilitating job generation.
“A small country like Israel has maximum start up companies or young ventures as they have robust R&D facilities. China has 5 lakh training centres. We have no such facilities, leading to brain drain,” Thakur said.
The manifesto will oppose FDI in multi-brand retail sector and advocate a separate institutional mechanism or ministry for the retail traders.
The manifesto could focus on bettering Centre-State relations by pursuing the concept of “cooperative federalism” and not that of “confrontation” as experienced during the UPA rule, sources said.
According to sources, Modi has suggested to the manifesto committee, headed by Murli Manohar Joshi, that the manifesto should not be bulky with scholarly nuances. The manifesto would not go into too much of details or background history of issues and rather concentrate on doable.
While it remains to be seen whether the party will take a call on subsidies to power companies, sources said Modi thinks “political appeasement” as “a very big factor” in India’s energy shortage problem with the States providing free electricity/subsidies to some of the groups leading to financial problems to State electricity boards.
Besides the manifesto, the BJP has also lined up a charge sheet against the Congress, illustrating its “culpability” in the key sectors of Defence and internal security. “The charge-sheet committee is headed by party’s chief media coordinator Ravi Shankar Prasad.
These apart, the party’s Vision Document for the next 20 years that would be put on the website for public suggestions has set an ambitious target of over 12 per cent growth per year for the country by pursuing “a more vigorous market-centric economic reforms” and breaking inter-State “economic barriers” to create “a National market” by removing “irrational restrictions” like sales tax in inter-State movements.
The party has recommended that savings be encouraged at national level and income below one lakh per month be made “tax-free”.
“Unlike the party manifesto, the vision document is a longer document, running into 70,000 words. It would be received by the party president Rajnath Singh from Vision Committee Chairman Nitin Gadkari and put on the website,” sources said clarifying that it would not be adopted by the party.