Promised Land
I am placing my signature below all that has been told by the leaders who spoke before me." This is how Prime Minister Narendra Modi started his speech at the Sankalp Patra release function organised by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) at its headquarters in New Delhi on April 8. Modi was endorsing the broad contours of the BJP's vision statement unveiled by top party leaders Amit Shah, Rajnath Singh, Arun Jaitley and Sushma Swaraj before him.
"No need to repeat the same," he said. If repetition was strictly avoided, the Sankalp Patra would have looked much thinner, as several promises in the BJP's vision document are quite familiar to the Indian public. Doubling of farmers' income is one. Swachh Bharat is another.
India's main opposition party, the Indian National Congress (INC), is not far behind in visionary statements. The party's election manifesto, named Congress Will Deliver, sets the goal of eliminating abject poverty by 2030. It assures Rs 72,000 annual income to 20 per cent poorest 50 million families through a
