Financial Viability of Election Promises

Recently, the Election Commission proposed amending the model code to ask political parties to provide authentic information to voters on the financial viability of their poll promises.

Key Points:

Changes proposed by the EC:

The poll panel has proposed to amend the Model Code of Conduct to add a proforma to Part VIII (Guidelines on election manifesto) of the MCC.

It will require political parties to inform voters about the:

Financial feasibility of promises made in their manifestos.
Details of revenue generation ways (through additional tax, if any),
Rationalizing expenditure (cutting some schemes, if so required),
Impact on committed liabilities and/or
Raising of further debt and its impact on Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management Act (FRBM) limits.

Rationale behind this move:

Under existing guidelines it has been found that the declarations are “quite routine, ambiguous and do not provide adequate information to voters to exercise informed choice in an election”.

Subramaniam Balaji case (2013): SC had directed EC to frame guidelines in consultation with the political parties to explore the possibility of including the election manifestos in the MCC (Model Code of Conduct).

Some of the promises and offers have an undesirable impact on the conduct of free and fair elections and on maintaining a level playing field.

Significance:

Disclosure of the promises in a prescribed format will bring in standardisation in the nature of information and help voters compare and make decisions.

With adequate disclosures on the financial implications of the promises made, the Indian electorate will be able to exercise informed poll choices.

Freebies:

Before every election, political parties in India make a number of health and education-related promises, along with limited-time free water and electricity.
Many parties also make promises of what is now referred to as freebies, including cell phones, bicycles, scooters, laptops with internet access, television sets, and even ghee! If the promises are genuine, the victorious coalition or party then distributes these things to the populace.

Motives behind the freebies:

The expansion in the phenomenon of “freebies” has forced the parties to turn to it in order to win over the electorate because neither the parties nor the governments were able to provide development to the common people.