AAP’s Lucky 51-Point Manifesto – Acceptability and Accountability in Voter’s hand
Tolerability of the voters and liability of the
political party in power, will be on the top of individual’s agenda
AAP’s Lucky 51-Point Manifesto – Acceptability and
Accountability in Voter’s hand
While the odd figures are taken as anomalous but
the Aam Aadmi Party has chose the lucky 51 figure while releasing its 51-Point
Manifesto for the 2017 Assembly Polls in Punjab, prepared by the Punjab
Dialogue Committee, for a modern, corruption-free and happy Punjab, touching
almost all the major issues - employment, anti-drug campaign, education and
sports.
The election manifestos deserve to be analyzed and
debated in the media to put wiser the voters about the importance of its
contents as there has a growing ideological convergence that leaves voters with
very little to choose from.
Normally the release of election manifestos are
treated as a ritual exercise in political rhetoric and promises contained in
them nothing but irresponsible populism.
From the outlook, the party manifestos look like a
piece of paper, just a simple document or just a world of words, with false
promises but full of ideas than the
editorial pages and problems being faced by the country.
It is also seen that the political parties often
pay lip service to some ideas and make promises which they never fulfill but it
is a very serious matter as majority of the voters are now educated youths and
every next term in politics who pays lip service, would be a pretty serious
business.
Aam Aadmi Party -AAP –who claims to be the best
manifesto among all - has taken the lead in announcing its manifesto well in
six month advance and the other two major parties – Congress and SAD-BJP
alliance, would lose no time to release their manifestos so that voters’ mind
is not set to the agenda released by the AAP. Since AAP has released its
manifesto almost touching all the major burning issues of the state, the other
parties will have to see that it is totally different 51-Point based on their
feedback.
So far as the other small parties existing like
BSP, CPI, they are not serious about the manifestos as they know that the fight
will be between Congress, SAD-BJP and AAP.
These parties cope with their political statements but such parties have their own fixed vote bank.
But the promises made in the manifestos make one
wonder if anyone seriously worried how they could be implemented when they same
have not been fulfilled in the past terms also.
Need of the hour is to have a debate on the
manifestos and media should give sufficient space , to such proposals, so that
the voters may make up their mind to bring the particular party in power. Lack of attention has meant that there is
little public debate on the proposals that different political parties mention
in their manifestos.
There has been growing ideological convergence
that leaves voters with very little to choose from. This convergence began with
a political consensus within the parties about the new economic policies for
which every voter wait in the next elections. How it could be well with the
manifestos when most of the policies of the state governments have come to
accept the policies of liberalization, privatization and globalization? No doubt, the meeting of political parties on
certain big policy issues educes surface political strife but it carries a big
risk for the individuality of the party and closure of a real political debate.
Frankly speaking, a manifesto is a
published verbal declaration of the intentions, motives, or views of the
issuer, be it an individual, group, political party or government with no
accountability provisions in the eyes of law and party but there is hardly any
acceptability and accountability. The voters are very intelligent now and will
not forgive in the event of non-fulfillment of promises. There is no harm, if the Election Commission
of India intervenes in accepting the standing of party on their performance as
per the release of the manifesto for the next term but this time the suitability
of the voters and liability of the political party in power, will be on the top
of individual’s agenda.
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