The Congress has always been all things to all people. This has, ironically, been its key strength and key failing. Never before, however, has the party sat down to write a manifesto after being out of office in New Delhi for eight long years. Thus, while its previous election manifestoes, including the one drafted in 1999, would have been read against its actual performance, this time the manifesto will be read more for its promises. This is how it should be. A party in power goes to the people seeking approval for its performance, while a party in opposition would normally seek approval for its promises.Given this premise, the manifesto of the Congress Party has devoted too much space to what it has done in the past, and too little to what it intends to do in the future. Perhaps this is required in part because there is in the electorate today a new generation of voters who have little memory of previous Congress governments, certainly not that of the governments headed by the Nehru family. Even so, the manifesto should have said something more about its vision for the future. While claiming that the Congress will offer “change with continuity”, the manifesto suggests there will be more continuity than change. It is a measure of the manifesto’s inability to project a clear new idea sharply that much of the immediate media focus was on the old style Stalinist pictorial “rehabilitation” of former prime minister, Narasimha Rao! On the substance of the manifesto itself, few would quarrel with most of the party’s ideas, but many would like to know how one must read between the lines. Consider, for example, the policy pertaining to the public sector. The stated formulation leaves far too many unanswered questions. Is there in fact a change of policy or merely a shift in emphasis? No one can or will disagree with the priorities listed in agriculture, rural development, infrastructure, health and education. The question is how does the Congress plan to address these challenges differently from previous Congress governments, not to speak of the non-Congress governments, for it to make a difference now?A party that has been in office for over four decades must get down to specifics, and cannot seek refuge in the comfort available to traditionally oppositional parties like the Left and regional parties, who always seek to be rewarded for their promise rather than performance. A national party like the Congress cannot expect to be taken seriously going in for an election without a prime ministerial candidate. For a manifesto that offers more than just a visual reminder of the party’s previous prime ministers, great persons all, the silence on the party’s candidate for the job is deafening. Even in a parliamentary democracy political parties need, apart from a cadre, candidates and a manifesto, a potential prime minister before it goes into electoral battle. Till the Congress names one it will lag behind its main rival which can name two!
