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True to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s assertion of “nationalism” being the BJP’s inspiration, a hawkish national security paradigm is the cornerstone of the ruling party’s manifesto released on Monday.
In the wake of rural distress which is moulding the ongoing Lok Sabha election campaign, “doubling farmers’ income by 2022” and rural welfare comes next in the BJP’s priority list, which also includes core ideological issues of Ram temple, abrogation of Article 370 and Uniform Civil Code.
The issue of Sabarimala also made an appearance for the first time along with campaigns to promote Sanskrit and clean the Ganga under a prominent title “Cultural Heritage”.
At the release of the manifesto, termed Sankalp Patra by the BJP, the PM underlined rashtravaad (nationalism), antyodaya (welfare of the poor) and sushasan (good governance) as his guiding principles.
National security
The manifesto, however, began with a 10-point chapter titled “Nation First”. It clubbed cultural nationalism and the BJP’s core ideological agenda of abrogating Article 370 and annulling Article 35A in Jammu and Kashmir with surgical strikes and air strikes in Pakistan.
The ruling party promised to start a project called “Smart Fencing” around all the borders besides pushing Citizenship (Amendment) Bill and the National Register of Citizens as part of its national security agenda.
“We will continue to undertake effective steps to prevent illegal immigration in the North Eastern States. For this, we will further strengthen our border security. A pilot project on the use of technology to strengthen border security (Smart Fencing) was implemented in Dhubri (Assam). We will implement this on all borders,” said the BJP’s Sankalp Patra .
Modi doctrine
Stressing on “zero-tolerance” on terrorism, the BJP manifesto amplified what the ruling party has termed as “Modi doctrine” of invading territory to attack terror targets.
“We will firmly continue our policy of zero tolerance against terrorism and extremism and will continue to follow our policy of giving a free hand to our security forces in combating terrorism,” said the 45-page-long manifesto.
The party touted the government’s flagship programmes such as Swachh Bharat Mission, Ujjwala Yojna, rural electrification, housing for 2.5 crore families, Ayushman Bharat and MUDRA Yojna, a lasting framework for economic governance with policy measures and statutes such as Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, GST, banking sector clean-up as instances of its implementing the core principles of “antyodaya” and “sushasan”.
All of these elements were preceded by an eight-point charter on agriculture titled “Doubling Farmers’ Income”. “We will make all efforts to achieve this goal by 2022,” the manifesto read. This manifesto promised to launch a pension scheme for small and marginal farmers, interest-free agricultural loans up to ₹1 lakh, and ₹25-lakh crore investment in Agri-rural sector.
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