Why Political Parties Can’t Escape From Promises Citing Legacy Debts

Politics are becoming increasingly competitive in India these days. This is amply reflected in the ever-narrowing gaps in voting percentages between winning and losing parties. This acute competition is pushing political parties into what is known as the FOMO syndrome. For the uninitiated, FOMO stands for ‘fear of missing out’. This syndrome is forcing many political parties to promise the moon and beyond, fearing electoral drubbing. This happens especially when these parties are in the opposition. Sometimes, ruling parties also indulge in such a game of promises if they sense defeat.

But people don’t take mere promises from ruling parties seriously. The reason is obvious. When it could not implement it during the current tenure, how can they do so in a new term?

For instance, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) promised much more than what BJP had promised in the recent Delhi elections. At one time, the then Chief Minister Atishi Marlena announced that promises made by AAP in its manifesto would offer a monetary benefit of Rs. 30,000 per month to beneficiary families! Still, Delhi voters opted for BJP!

The moot question is whether parties which make promises and come to power can escape from implementing such promises citing one reason or the other. Will the voters punish such political parties if promises are not implemented? Are there any alternative strategies?

Telangana Chief Minister Anumula Revanth Reddy made interesting comments while speaking at a media event in New Delhi recently. When asked about the implementation of six guarantees his party promised during the 2023 Assembly polls, the Congress Chief Minister boldly admitted that he realised that the Telangana government’s coffers were empty when he assumed charge as the Chief Minister. He claimed that despite financial hardships, his government implemented waiver of farm loans up to Rs. two lakh with over Rs. 21,000 crore, free bus travel to women and several other schemes. Subsequently, he went on to add that he would have implemented all the schemes he had promised, had the BRS government not left a debt pile of over Rs. seven lakh crore. But he is not alone in this aspect. The BJP-led Mahayuti government in Maharashtra also tweaked some of the promises made by it during last year’s Assembly elections, citing financial constraints.

In Andhra Pradesh too, Nara Chandrababu Naidu, the Chief Minister of the Telugu Desam Party-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government, cited financial hardships in implementing promises under Super Six he made during the 2024 Assembly polls. The previous YSRCP government led by YS Jagan Mohan Reddy implemented most of the welfare schemes it promised, and spent a staggering Rs. 4.50 lakh crore on such schemes between 2019 and 2024. Still, he lost the elections!

It is a known fact that YS Jagan Mohan Reddy has struggled to raise funds for the welfare schemes during those five years. Furthermore, Naidu’s failure to implement the promise of unlimited farm loan waiver after winning the 2014 elections cost his party dearly in the 2019 polls. Of course, no political party has made farm loan waiver promises in AP after that because they realised that it is not practically possible to implement such high-value assurances. Despite such experiences, Naidu promised enlarged versions of most of the YSRCP welfare schemes and much more in the 2024 elections.

But at the recent Formation Day meeting of TDP in Vijayawada, Naidu claimed that when he was in the opposition he was under the impression that his six major promises could be implemented easily. But he blamed the government debt of Rs. 9.74 lakh crore left behind by the YSRCP government for AP’s current financial challenges. He further said that the State should be developed and wealth should be created instead of relying on debts for implementing welfare schemes successfully. He is bang on that front. But creating wealth takes a long time. Furthermore, his strategy of developing Greenfield Amaravati capital is also flawed. It is often said that Amaravati will be developed on the lines of Hyderabad, especially Hitech City and its technology-ecosystem dominated surrounding areas. Hyderabad owes its rapid expansion into modernity mainly to the employment-generating IT sector and also, to some extent, the pharmaceutical segment. Without the presence of such employment-generating sectors, it’s not easy to develop a Hyderabad-like city in Amaravati even in the next few decades. Moreover, as in the past, the current Andhra Pradesh government is trying to develop Visakhapatnam as the commercial capital.

But Andhra Pradesh needs a capital city which can offer economies of scale like Hyderabad if it really wants to have a revenue-churning urban agglomeration. That will not happen if AP confines IT and pharma sectors to Visakhapatnam. It is to be seen how the government will handle such issues if it is keen on developing the State and creating wealth for it.

Anyway, it is not good to say that all welfare schemes, including direct transfer benefit schemes, are bad. For, it is the responsibility of the government to take care of the poor and downtrodden in any society. This responsibility is far higher in a democratic country like India. But there is no point in giving out high-value monetary benefits to financially well-off families.

For instance, parents of non-resident Indians who receive fat salaries in the US and other developed countries are receiving old age pensions in India. That amount is peanuts for them, but is a huge burden on the government.

In Telangana, even landlords who own tens of acres were paid Rythu Bandhu amount of Rs. 10,000 per acre per year by the BRS government. Not ironically, this scheme benefited land owners mostly and not the farmers. Income tax payers and government employees with fat salaries, benefitted from such schemes, while real farmers including tenant farmers suffered losses due to non-remunerative prices to their produce.

Under Rythu Bharosa, the reworked scheme of Rythu Bandhu, the Revanth Reddy government increased the amount. But the Telangana government should see to it that only small farmers benefited from it. There is no point in offering financial benefits to landowners and rich farmers.

Besides, the Revanth Reddy government has taken a revolutionary step by supplying fine rice through the public distribution system (PDS). The earlier practice of supplying non-fine rice turned the scheme useless as most beneficiaries resold the rice for small amounts.

A similar exercise should be taken up as regards the Anganwadi scheme, which is currently nothing but a sheer waste of precious public resources. It is simply benefiting the teachers and their helpers. So is also the State government’s education system. The Telangana government should bring in revolutionary reforms in the education system so that public resources are put to optimum use and the poor benefit from them.

Anyway, the bottom line is simple. Political parties like TDP and Congress can’t escape from implementing promises they have made citing legacy debts, that too after coming to power. People don’t believe them even if they do for these parties and their leaders have enough experience to know what is going on in any government.

These political parties should rework their strategies to see that only the poor and the genuinely deserving benefit from the welfare schemes. That way, they can reduce the financial burden of the welfare schemes on the exchequer by a large extent.

At the same time, they should focus on rapid development, which will eventually elevate living standards. If they don’t do that and instead go on blaming the previous governments for the financial problems, they will pay heavy electoral prices in the next elections. And that is the ground reality.