Since the Congress revealed their election manifesto last Tuesday, 2 April, the country has been waiting for BJP’s version of the document. Described as ‘sankalp patra,’ the BJP manifesto was released by Prime Minister Narendra Modi along with Amit Shah on Monday, 8 April. The document revolves around the theme of ‘Sankalpit Bharat – Shashakt Bharat’ or ‘Determined India, Empowered India’.
The manifesto has 75 resolutions to commemorate 75 years of Independence. After the manifesto was released with promises of double income to farmers, zero-tolerance approach to terrorism, implementing Citizenship Amendment Bill, and others, Twitter users took to the micro blogging site to dissect, analyse and compare it with the Congress’ manifesto.
For starters, the official Twitter handle of the Congress put out a tweet that showed the difference between the covers of both manifestos. While the Congress’ manifesto cover has an image of a crowd of people, BJP’s document has a picture of Narendra Modi.
The tweet read: “Our manifesto incorporates the views of millions of people in the country, while the manifesto of the BJP has only one person’s ‘Mann ki Baat’.”
#BJPJumlaManifesto was trending among other hashtags like #BJPManifesto and #BJPSankalpPatr2019. The Congress also created a Modi Jumla Tracker on Twitter which talked about the ‘failures’ of the BJP government.
One Congress worker tweeted a spoof of BJP’s manifesto that talks about Modi’s ‘achievements’ in five years. Some of the things on the list are ‘Dictatorship over democracy’, ‘Oppression of minorities’ and ‘Hate and fear-driven society’.
The manifesto’s promise to give farmers Rs 6,000 per month was criticised by the Congress too. “That's almost a paltry Rs 16 per day. How is that justice or respect to the farmers?” tweeted Chandigarh Congress’ official Twitter handle.
Old Wine?
Congress spokesperson Salman Anees Soz pointed how the BJP’s promise of pension for small traders was made in 2009 too.
Writer Sanjukta Basu said the 33 percent reservation for women was also mentioned in the previous manifesto.
Twitter users also pointed out how ‘Ram Mandir’ has been on BJP’s manifesto for the past 23 years.
Missing Jobs
Twitter users said there was not even a mention of jobs or promises of any in the manifesto.
No Questions Entertained
Journalist Rajdeep Sardesai said that while the the manifesto release was much longer and the speeches were detailed, not a single question was taken from journalists unlike during the release of the Congress manifesto.
Journalist Abhisar Sharma also criticised Modi for not taking any questions post the release of the manifesto.
Impractical & Illogical Points
Journalist MK Venu said the BJP’s promise of sending Rs 100 lakh crore on infrastructure over five years seems too ambitious in terms of resource allocation.
The BJP manifesto says, the forest cover increased because the Modi government gave swift clearances to chop down forests. Twitterati called out the absurdity of the tweet.
Jibe at Jaitley
Twitter also made fun of Finance Minister Arun Jaitley’s ‘tukde tukde’ remark.
What About Old Promises?
Writer Krishan Partap Singh questioned the BJP for lack of accounting of promises made in 2014. “Future promises aren’t worth anything when you never kept the first ones,” he said.
Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal called the manifesto a “fresh set of jumlas”. “Modi-Shah don't have the courage to speak on why demonetisation was done? What happened to two crore jobs ? Why were farmers pushed towards destruction?” he asked.
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