Congress Manifesto 2019: NYAY Rides A CUMBAK Vote Formula

If there is a shorthand way to sum up the Indian National Congress’ election manifesto for 2019, it is this: Under Rahul Gandhi, the party has put the spirit of 1971 in the body of 1991. The party has taken a decisive turn to the populist Left as it promises to rain jobs and incomes on nearly everyone who needs it and back it up with a slew of enforceable rights that makes the Indian state more liberal in outlook.

This is Garibi Hatao 2.0 as the Congress president takes a desperate leaf out of his grandmother Indira Gandhi’s playbook for 1971 that returned her with a landslide – but strangely enough, this retains the structure of the liberalised economic growth that the same party had ushered in with a reforms package under Prime Minister PV Narasimha Rao in 1991. Questions remain on how far can the implementation go, but the substantially crowd-sourced manifesto that is titled “Congress Will Deliver” is more tangible in identifiable goals than in the manifesto of 2014, when Congress-led UPA lost power after two terms in the saddle under Manmohan Singh.

The Pitch And The Audience

Rahul Gandhi, if only he was stealing the art of conjuring up acronyms from his political target, Prime Minister Narendra Modi of the Bharatiya Janata Party, can say his party is on a comeback trail, spelled CUMBAK, if you may please.

The manifesto, beyond the numbers and nuggets the well-heeled might understand better, is essentially targeting six demographic groups best described in Hindi as Chhatra (student), Udyami (enterprising worker/entrepreneur), Mahila (women), Berozgaar (jobless), Alpsankhyak (minority) and Kisan (farmer).

The party’s universal minimum income plan Nyuntam Aay Yojana is the lynchpin of this strategy as it clearly promises Rs 6,000 a family to 5 crore families identified as poor, but there is a lot in the manifesto in terms of laws promised to be introduced or removed that has a coherence that fleshes out what it promised in the 2014 manifesto that said: “We believe in a simple universal truth: equity and opportunity for all.”

The detailed 54-page manifesto’s official word-soup, “Kaam, Daam, Shaan, Sushashan, Swabhimaan, Samman” (jobs, fair economy, pride, governance, self-esteem, dignity) is better interpreted in a CUMBAK demographic formula where the votes come from.

The manifesto of 2014 looked back on a decade of UPA rule that rained the Right to Information, Right to Education and spoke of Right to Work in what it then called a “Regime of Rights.” To enforce those rights, the Congress manifesto is in 2019 trying to make India’s political economy turn left while hoping to keep the growth story intact. That is where there are more questions than answers as the affirmation. With a very straight face, the manifesto says it aims to bring fiscal deficit to 3 percent of gross domestic product by early as 2020-21.

The Promises And The Math

But there are hints on how Congress might go about this for those who watch nuances. The policy team’s backroom boy Praveen Chakravarty lets it out clearly that NYAY will happen in phases with state government support. That leaves room open for tussles with opposition-ruled states and bureaucratic wrangles over how to measure who is the real beneficiary (a fate Congress might share with BJP’s 10 percent job quota for the economically poor). NYAY’s chief manifesto architect, P Chidambaram, says experts will be consulted to make it “doable” and throws in a hint that the “denominator will increase. It will be rolled out in phases” – which means an increase in growth will lower the spending as a share of the GDP.

To this budget jugglery, we may add, taking the 2014 mention of equity, that the party may have taxes on its mind for the super-rich in terms of wealth and inheritance levies. Without that, handling the trinity of wealth creation, equity and guarantee of welfare seems well nigh impossible. Hint: Chidambaram speaks of “distributive justice”.

Law-making promises are a lot easier. It is certain that even if Congress comes back to power, it would be at the mercy of coalition allies. To that extent, it can go easy on manifesto promises that require solid support in both Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha. But it is clear that the party is less vague and more clear on what it will do: it promises to decriminalise sedition by law, make defamation a civil rather than criminal offence and provide a benign legal framework for farm loan defaults. A slew of such promises makes it accountable.

“Doable” is a word Rahul Gandhi used in his manifesto news conference, and there is a lot in the manifesto that you can hold him to – if only Congress comes anywhere near that elusive majority in parliament.

Wooing The Left

Apart from an elaborate list of measures to help students, there is even an omnibus Student Rights Act promise – something that would please JNU leftists while riling their bitter opponents, the Modi Bhakts. An accompanying promise to roughly double the spending on education to 6 percent of GDP, an aim thoroughly missed in the past, is a quantifiable one to woo students – but then, like NYAY, this rides the thin edge of the fiscal wedge.

We will have to wait and see what an intended “Environmental Protection Authority” with suitable empowerment would be in contrast to the current National Green Tribunal-monitored regime and compared with its own 2014 promise of a “National Environmental Appraisal and Monitoring Authority” but it is clear that the party is raring to go green, even talking of an “emergency” in air pollution.

More than Rahul Gandhi’s promise of filling up 4 lakh central government job vacancies and enabling free entry of entrepreneurial startups with a no-questions-asked-regime for three years, there is a green tinge even to job creation. The manifesto aims for 10 lakh new gram-panchayat and local urban body aid workers as early as 2020 – with a focus on wasteland development and water bodies’ restoration. Even the MGNREGA job guarantee scheme is aimed to be linked to soil quality and water conservation.

Credible Alternative To Modi?

However, in promising a single rate Goods and Services Tax, keeping a reinvented, lean Planning Commission, wooing foreign investors and sustaining a push on disinvestment in public sector enterprises, the market-oriented body of the old reforms stays.

Specifics, such as recognising the tenancy rights of woman farmers, a special investigative agency to police crimes against women, providing working women’s hostels in special economic zones and a law to make registration of marriages compulsory show the arrival of women as a vote bank – something the Congress is banking on to counter caste-based vote banks where it is on a weak wicket.

Taken with a slew of promised civil rights-friendly laws and repeals that promise empowerment to the underprivileged, there is an attempt to on the one hand combat BJP’s conservative strongman governance, and on the other undercut regional parties riding on caste or linguistic identities. In essence, this shows Congress trying to stitch up a CUMBAK coalition at the national level. Will it be good enough to outmanoeuvre Modi’s national security-driven shrillness? A lot depends on how allies behave and fiscal buttons are pressed.

Fiscal discipline is a bridge that is best-crossed when the party comes to it. Like Brexit, we will believe it when it happens.

Madhavan Naraynan is a senior journalist and commentator.

The views expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of BloombergQuint or its editorial team.