WWPP: When Will Pappu Pass?

Though India’s ruling party – BJP – is yet to release its election manifesto for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the principal opposition party – Congress – released their manifesto yesterday (02 April), with party president Rahul Gandhi (fondly called Pappu by many Indians) at centrestage, flanked by his Mummy Sonia Gandhi on one side, and Accidental Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh on the other.

If the Congress Manifesto was released a day earlier, one would have assumed that it was an April Fool’s Day joke on India’s 1.35 billion people.

We Will Deliver – is the title of the manifesto. It can be summarised as:

• We Will Deliver India’s Economy to Hell and the Inflation Rate to Record Highs (explained later)
• We Will Deliver the Accountability of the National Security Advisor to Parliament and not to the Prime Minister’s Office, so that no national security decision can be taken in quick time, as and when needed – by doing this, WE WILL EFFECTIVELY DELIVER INDIA’S NATIONAL SECURITY TO CHINA AND PAKISTAN.
• We Will Deliver Indian Armed Forces to their Graves by removing the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA)
• We Will Deliver Freedom (Azadi) to Kashmir
• We Will Deliver Freedom to Seditionists and allow more TUKDE-TUKDE GANGS to come up, who can shout slogans of dividing India
• We Will Deliver an Amended Law for Detention without Trial and Investigating Agencies’ Powers to search, seize, attach, summon, interrogate and arrest, so that our NIA, CBI and other law enforcement agencies become toothless and suspected terrorists or criminals cannot be taken into custody without a court order, thereby allowing such suspects to easily escape
• We Will Deliver an Amended Code of Criminal Procedure and related laws to affirm the principle that ‘Bail is the rule and jail is the exception’, so that alleged economic offenders such as Karti Chidambaram and Robert Vadra, and alleged separatists such as SAS Geelani and Mirwaiz Umar Farooq will get Automatic Bail.
• We Will Deliver the Immediate Release of all remand and under trial prisoners facing charges punishable with imprisonment of 3 years or less who have spent 3 months in prison; and all remand and under trial prisoners facing charges punishable with imprisonment of 3 to 7 years who have spent 6 months in prison. Thereby, We Will Deliver Reduced Prison Sentences to almost all prisoners.
• We Will Deliver a Process to Involve the Community in the Oversight of the Police Force, so that they are not just answerable to criminal elements in our polity, but in the larger community as well.
• We Will Deliver Freedom to Tax Evaders
• We Will Deliver Easier Bank Credit to Borrowers, so that the likes of Vijay Mallya, Nirav Mdi, Mehul Choksi, Anil Ambani, Essar, Jaypee Group and Lanco can thrive once again
• We Will Deliver a Single, Moderate, Single Rate of GST, so that essential goods with the current 5% GST are taxed at 15% and Luxury Goods (such as luxury cars) and Sin Goods (such as tobacco) with the current 28% GST enjoy the reduced rate of 15%
• We Will Deliver the exact (word-by-word) same things in our Foreign Policy and in our Tourism Policy. After all, that’s what our manifesto states
• We Will Deliver a further layer between the High Courts and the Supreme Court, so that the extremely slow pace of justice delivery in India becomes even slower
• We Will Deliver (or continue to deliver) more and more lies to the people of India. For example, our manifesto says that Congress will reverse the trend of declining defence spending under the NDA government, even though defence spending in NDA’s five years went up by 76.3% compared to 78.3% in UPA-2’s five years. After all, this 2% is a decline

IN SUMMARY, WE WILL MAKE INDIA A LAWLESS STATE WHERE CORRUPTION RETURNS IN FULL FORCE, CRIMINALS ARE NOT PUNISHED, THE ARMED FORCES ARE WEAKENED AND THE ECONOMY IS CRIPPLED. IN DOING SO, WE WILL DELIVER A FREE AND SAFE PACKAGE TO CHINA AND PAKISTAN IN DOING WHATSOEVER THEY WISH IN THE GEOPOLITICS OF ASIA.

NOW LET US SEE HOW CONGRESS WILL EFFECTIVELY DELIVER INDIA’S ECONOMY TO HELL AND INFLATION TO RECORD HIGH LEVELS:

• India’s GDP is ₹197 Lakh Crores (₹197 Trillion). For ease of calculation, let’s round it off to ₹200 Lakh Crores
• At a stable annual growth rate of 7.5%, the GDP will be about ₹287 Lakh Crores by 2023-24, the final year of the new government to be elected soon
• Government of India’s (GOI) Total Budget Expenditure is ₹27.84 Lakh Crores
• GOI’s Fiscal Deficit is ₹7.04 Lakh Crores, or 3.5% of GDP. Congress says it will reduce this to below 3% of GDP within 2 years. Even if it exact 3%, this will need additional ₹1.16 Lakh Crores p.a.
• Government Health Expenditure is about 1.4% of GDP, or about ₹2.8 Lakh Crores. Congress says it will increase the government’s health expenditure to 3% of GDP (₹8.61 Lakh Crores) by 2023-24. Therefore, an additional ₹5.81 Lakh Crores crores will be needed each year
• Expenditure on Education is about 2.5% of GDP, or about ₹5 Lakh Crores. Congress says it will increase this to 6% of GDP (₹17.22 Lakh Crores) by 2023-24. Therefore, an additional ₹12.22 Lakh Crores crores will be required p.a.
• Defence Expenditure is about ₹3.6 Lakh Crores. Congress says it will increase this. Assuming the increase is just 10%, an additional ₹36,000 Crores crores will be needed each year
• The Get-Votes-For-Cash Scheme “NYAY” announced by Congress with much fanfare will need ₹3.6 Lakh Crores (5 crore households @ ₹72,000 p.a.)
• Congress says it will set up 6 new Courts of Appeals, at least 2 other Ministries, increase strength of paramilitary and police forces, amongst endless other promises. Let us conservatively assume that all of these promises will need ONLY ₹10,000 Crores p.a.

THE TOTAL COMES TO ₹23.25 LAKH CRORES PER YEAR.

GOI’S TOTAL ANNUAL RECEIPTS ARE JUST ₹20.80 LAKH CRORES. ASSUMING A 8% ANNUAL GROWTH, THIS WILL GO UP TO ₹29.85 LAKH CRORES BY 2023-24.

TO MEET CONGRESS PROMISES, ADDITIONAL REVENUES OF A WHOPPING 77.9% WILL BE NEEDED. Since Congress says it will maintain Fiscal Deficit to below 3% and Revenue Deficit to below 1%, the only way this is possible is by increasing taxes substantially, unless the PARIWAAR is planning to gift its “family jewels” to the nation – it’s high time they did that, anyways.

Some people say that this nonsensical manifesto is just to weaken Narendra Modi and the BJP, as the Congress knows that it is realistically not anywhere close to winning the 2019 elections; so it is focusing on 2024 instead, by which time the then 54-year-old Pappu is expected to pass.

On the subject of hurting BJP and Modi, I beg to differ. Over the past year or so, Congress was gaining traction, and was inching close to winning about 125-135 seats on its own, increasing its tally by 84-107% compared with the 2014 elections. After this poorly thought-off and completely disastrous manifesto, the Congress tally is unlikely to cross 115 seats. And who will gain the 10-20 seats that Congress will lose because of its manifesto? Obviously, BJP/NDA.