Poll tone: Bharat in, India out

By M H Ahssan

Fear Of Backlash Makes Pranab Stick To The Road Well Travelled

Pranab Mukherjee’s Interim Budget made headlines for what he did not say or do. Many feel he could have converted the economic crisis into an opportunity to hand out sops at no political cost.

It is learnt that the decision to stay on the right side of the customary propriety not to turn the vote-on-account into a blandishment for the voter was a unanimous one, and largely because the leadership was not sure that a deviation from the convention would have been rewarded at the hustings.

Expectedly, Congress’s calculations for the looming elections are writ large over the budget. Mukherjee, who has has been accused of number dressing to scale down the estimated fiscal deficit, has been very transparent in stating that the “aam aadmi” theme, with which the party undercut NDA’s ‘Shining India’ pitch in 2004, stays as its zeitgeist for the coming encounter as well. “Aam aadmi has become the focus of development process,” he said.

The “common man” strand ran through the tom-tomming of achievements to the declaration of intent. But as Mukherjee reeled off figures to claim how UPA had delivered on its promises, it was clear that the focus of the campaign would be on Bharat rather than India. This despite the the delimitation exercise that was said to have offset the overwhelming advantage rural India has had in shaping poll outcomes.

Congress strategists, clearly, are convinced that villages continue to have a higher weightage in the electoral college (Mukherjee pegged their share of the population at 60%). The attention may also have to do with the belief that migrants in cities take their voting cues from folks back home.

The rural voter has been wowed with claims of jobs already done as also promises of continued commitment — doubling of agricultural credit with continuing interest subsidy, the mega loan waiver, generous Minimum Support Prices, National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme and, of course, the highly popular Indira Gandhi Awas Yojana. A high-wattage campaign to flaunt the schemes is already on. No prizes for guessing that Congress will substitute DAVP’s ads with its own once the announcement of polls puts an end to the surrogate advertising.

There are announcements for specific constituencies. No figure has been put to back up the promise to provision adequate funds for minority welfare schemes. But to put it on the top of the section dealing with social sector in disregard of BJP’s continued campaign is a statement by itself.