Mumbai: While the BJP excelled in making promises about the Women and Child Development sector through their manifesto, the Shiv Sena UBT and Maha Vikas Aghadi manifestos stood out for their vision over environment, labour and employment, and the social justice sectors according to an analytical studies of election manifestos by the Informed Voter Project.

Informed Voter Project, a non-profit institution that aims to inform the voters about their potential representatives, released a report on Saturday analysing the promises made by political parties and their alliances across sectors through their election manifestos.

The report analysed a total of 671 promises across four manifestos of the BJP, MVA, Shiv Sena (UBT) and the NCP. The report observed that while the MVA and BJP manifestos contained 363 and 176 promises respectively across 10 subject areas studied, NCP made a total of 350 constituency-wise promises, while Shiv Sena (UBT) made only 51 promises, which were the lowest among its competitors.

Observation Made By The Report

The report observed that 42% of the promises made in the MVA manifesto were related to agriculture and the social justice and empowerment sectors, while 40% of BJP’s manifesto were related to these sectors. The SHS (UBT) manifesto contained 47% promises related to social justice and empowerment and the women and child development. Similarly, 43% of NCP’s promises were related to agriculture and healthcare.

IVP’s analytical study used parameters like diagnostic rigour, clear scope, clear timeline, clear budget, clear implementation plan and clear commitment for promises across 10 sectors like Law and Justice, Agriculture, Health, Labour and Employment, Social Justice and Empowerment, Women and Child Development and Environment among others.

According to the study, MVA’s manifesto received thumbs-ups for eight sectors and neutral for two, followed by BJP’s three thumbs-ups, neutral in five and thumbs-down in two sectors. Shiv Sena (UBT) manifesto received only two thumbs-ups, neutral in four and thumbs-down in four sectors. Similarly, NCP performed neutral in eight and received thumbs-downs in two sectors.

The promises of MVA and BJP related to agriculture ranked the highest as MVA promised a debt waiver for farmers up to Rs. 3 Lakhs, a Rs. 50,000 incentive for regular loan repayment and more while the BJP promised an increase in the Kisan Samman Yojana from Rs.12,000 to Rs.15,000 annually.

While the MVA manifesto stood out in terms of Environment and Climate Change, the BJP and NCP manifestos had no no mention about it. The MVA mentioned it 10 times while the SHS (UBT) mentioned it 3 times in their manifestos. The MVA and Shiv Sena (UBT) ranked above others for social justice and empowerment promises with promises like waiver of electricity bill, caste-based census, special budgets and research institutes for tribal and scheduled castes,

The MVA and BJP scored above the others in Healthcare while the MVA Manifesto was superior compared to the rest for labour and employment promises. BJP scored the best for Wwomen and Child Development promises by pressing on Lakhpati Didis, Tejasvini buses and Vishakha committees.

The analysis also observed that NCP’s manifesto was the only constituency-specific manifesto that seemed to address the local issues encountered by citizens across the 53 constituencies it is contesting from. It also mentioned that MVA Manifesto is the only one that clearly articulates a ‘100 days’ Action Plan’ across all subject areas.

Vivek Gilani, founding trustee of Informed Voter Project, said, “The manifestos were released just a week to ten days before the date of polling. This made it the shortest time frame available to citizens of the second-most populous state in India to gain intelligence about the political agendas that will be pursued by the contesting political parties. 120 million citizens have only 10 days of thought for deciding the social possibilities for 1825 days of consequences.”