Whose economic agenda is it? Doesn8217;t matter, it8217;s same for both

BJP activists, in fact, argue that the Congress manifesto, released three days before their party8217;s, has actually stolen several progressive ideas from the BJP. But given that the Congress began the reforms process, that8217;s a bit of a chicken-and-egg kind of situation.

If the Congress manifesto, to cite one such example, talked of setting up an Expenditure Management Commission, then this is something that Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha first spoke of in his Budget in February 8212; for some strange reason, though, the BJP8217;s manifesto doesn8217;t mention this though. Similarly, both manifestoes promise to explore the possibility of getting Parliament to pass a law to put a ceiling on the kind of fiscal deficit that any government can possibly run 8212; both parties term it the Fiscal Responsibility Act8217;.

Nor are the similarities restricted to just this. Some of the specific numbers are the same, giving rise to the possibly unjustified suspicion that both manifestoes have been made by the same person, with minor modifications to suit each party8217;s image! What is the ideal amount of foreign direct investment that we should be targeting annually? The Congress manifesto puts the number at around 8 billion to 10 billion, as compared to the 3 billion that we get right now. Surprise, surprise. The BJP, which says it rejects both the old leftist approach8217; as well as the rightist approach8217;, says we should target to get foreign direct investment of 10 billion!

It gets better. The Congress promises economic growth of 7 per cent to 8 per cent per year8217;, the BJP thinks it can get 7-8 per cent8217;. Both parties agree education is vital if India wants to make it big in the next millennium, both feel that spending 6 per cent of the country8217;s GDP on education will achieve this.

Ironically, even when it comes to the bad news, both party8217;s manifestoes are remarkably similar 8212; both duck uncomfortable questions on how their targets or aims are to be met. And if the Congress appears to be more vulnerable on this count, it8217;s only because they8217;ve really stuck their neck out to give concrete targets. While talking of fiscal deficits, for instance, the Congress has promised to cut the combined deficit of the Centre and states to 4 per cent of GDP in four years it8217;s around 9 per cent right now 8212; the BJP has confined itself to saying it will control deficits8217;.

But while the Congress talks of slashing deficits in four years, it still talks of ensuring that the terms of trade are always kept in favour of agriculture 8212; in the short run, this can be done primarily by constantly hiking procurement prices for agricultural produce, and hence hiking farm subsidies. Similarly, the BJP talks of controlling deficits, but instead of slashing subsidies it talks of implementing subsidies of all kinds to maximise the benefit to all sections of the agricultural population. While both parties talk of sharply curtailing the role of the public sector, neither is willing to give any specific promise on giving the Disinvestment Commission a statutory status 8212; if this is done, it would make it impossible for the government to keep ignoring the politically prickly recommendations of the Commission interestingly, in its manifesto last year, the Congress had promised to give statutory status to the Commission. In terms of the BJP8217;s celebrated jargon, you could call this a casecalibrated8217; promises.