By Nitya Chakraborty
The Congress leadership has finally announced the panel for preparing the manifesto of the Party for fighting the BJP in the Lok Sabha polls in 2019.The content of the GOP’s manifesto is of crucial importance to the grassroots cadres of the Party since these will be the campaign points and at the base level, the party workers will be facing the BJP’s massive election machinery by articulating the programme and promises mentioned in the manifesto.
For the Congress, especially the President Rahul Gandhi, the consideration should be that in the present context, the Congress manifesto has to act as the core of the combined opposition’s common minimum programme and it has to reflect the vision which will be shared by the other opposition parties which will fight the saffron forces in the coming elections. The new Congress President has to impart his vision of a New Resurgent Inclusive India in this document to challenge the Modi Vision of a New India by 2022.In the recent weeks, Rahul has been most forthright in articulating his views on dalits, women, the farmers and the task of protecting the secular character of the Indian state. All these are vital components of the proposed manifesto. But Rahul has to show his originality by proposing a real revival plan of the Indian economy which will be based on massive generation of new jobs.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi talked of generating two crore jobs a year in the economy in his election campaign in 2014. PM is rarely talking of the Job generation now. His gross failure on the employment front is apparent. This is the most important plank on the basis of which the Congress manifesto has to give a vision of a new India during the rule of the anti-BJP coalition where the vast army of unemployed youth can be gainfully absorbed and where the skill development will be a continuing process imparting a new dynamism to the small scale and the medium industries throughout the country. The rejuvenation of the informal sector which has been crippled during the Modi regime and the massive expansion of the MSMEs have to be the main pillars of job generation in the rural and semi urban areas.
The manifesto panel of the Congress must set up an experts panel to suggest the content of the employment generation policy during the 2019-24 period or even for the next ten year period and that should be the key to the manifesto programme. Modi is cornered right now on the job front and he is ridiculed by the millions of job seekers who supported Modi in the 2014 elections. Rahul’s manifesto has to bring back these disgruntled youth in the anti-BJP camp and that can not be done by run of the mill programmes, the job policy has to be innovative and should be able to inspire the confidence of the youth. The formulation of a viable job programme can make a lot of difference in the run up to the Lok Sabha elections next year.
The time has come for the Congress President to bring back the talk of socialism in the Congress agenda. Neo-liberalism in its old form has failed even in the western countries. In Britain, the Labour leader Jeremy Cobryn has declared himself as a pro- socialist and his new programme based on repudiation of neo liberal economic policies, has got wide support from the youth. He has every possibility to enter 10, Downing Street as the next PM in 2020. In USA, the progressive section of the Democratic Party is getting massive response from the younger population for their pro-people agenda. Bernie Sanders has popularized socialism again among the younger section. Rahul Gandhi must work to bring the spirit of socialism in the Congress campaign. Akhilesh Yadav, the young supremo of the Samajwadi Party has been talking of being a practicing socialist. Rahul can reinvent socialist principles meeting the needs of the new century. Rahul, Akhilesh, Mamata and Stalin can lead the opposition brigade to charge at the saffron might.
More and more data are pouring in about the miserable state of affairs on the employment front in the country. While the Modi government has made no real study of the job losses in the informal sector after the demonetisation in November 2016 and its impact on the MSMEs following introduction of GST from July 1, 2017, data now coming out of the Indian companies are also appalling. Employment growth in corporate India has fallen off sharply over the last decade from around 5 to 6 per cent per annum in 2006-07 to 2 to 3 per cent in 2016-17.Capitaline data for 2,424 firms found they employed a little over 6 million persons in FY 2017 while1,033 firms in FY 2007 employed 3.3 million persons. Since not all firs report employment data, analysis shows that the average number of employee per firm fell from 3,166 in 2007 FY to 2501 in FY 2017.
This is because, over this period, even big firms shed a large number of employees. L&T, for instance saw employment rise from 21873 in 2003 to 54,579 in 2014 but this fell to 41,466 in 2017 which coincides with Modi rule. SAIL saw its numbers to fall from 101,678 in 2013 to 82,964 in 2017.The last three years belong to Modi regime when the fall was very sharp. Similar job losses took place in the central public sector undertakings during the four years reign of Narendra Modi. A CMIE study has also shown that while employment growth averaged 4 per cent in 2006-2010, the UPA period, this fell to a mere 0.75 per cent in 2013-2017.Out of this period, full three years belong to the Modi regime.
The elections are mainly a battle of perception these days and Narendra Modi won the battle of 2014 due to his thrust on fighting corruption and generating 10 crore jobs in five years. Positive perception about Modi has dwindled but as against him, perception about Rahul as an alternative, has not improved to the level to challenge Modi immediately. But the process has started and that can reach momentum if Rahul can take all the anti-BJP opposition parties with him on the basis of a common minimum programme to challenge the BJP and its allies. The Congress President has to show enough flexibility in reaching understanding with the medium and smaller parties of the opposition to forge a solid anti-BJP front. The next meeting of the 17 opposition parties scheduled next month, should facilitate that process of building unity of the opposition to fight the BJP led NDA in the coming polls. (IPA Service)
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