Manifesto 2014: BJP has more hits than misses

CHANDIGARH: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came to power in Haryana in 2014 riding the ‘Modi wave’ backed by 10-year anti-incumbency of the Congress’ rule. Its manifesto was of little consequence when it comes to the party’s performance then.

The saffron party that formed the government for the first time in the state in 2014, had made 154 promises in its 15-page manifesto.

The Manohar Lal Khattar-led govenment has not only fulfilled most of the key promises in its maiden stint, but has even gone beyond on some others with increased transparency and use of technology. Nonetheless, it failed to keep its words on some promises while work is in progress on others.

One of the key promises fulfilled by the BJP is the regularisation of over 13,000 guest teachers which was pending for over a decade. The BJP had also promised ₹2,000 old age pension – which has over 15 lakh beneficiaries — that too has been fulfilled though in a phased manner.

The BJP government smartly made positive and reformist moves on some of its promises. Sample these: Instead of following the Swaminathan report for farmers verbatim, it hiked the minimum support price of several crops and also brought in schemes to support farmers in case of slide in market prices.

Some of its other major reformist steps included transparency in recruitments, online transfer policy in the education department, giving a major relief to over 98,000 teachers.

There are, however, several promises which the government failed to fulfil that include giving Punjab government pay scales to Haryana employees, especially the ministerial staff and police constables, though it hiked the pay of most of other categories of employees. While it failed to give interest-free loan to all poor farmers of Haryana, it also failed to set up of Lok Pal and Punjab and Haryana High Court bench in southcentral Haryana.