Nationalism core election promise of India's Modi

CHANDIGARH, India

India’s ruling party on Monday made a number of promises in its election manifesto, including stripping special rights from the people of Jammu and Kashmir region.

The Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) released the election manifesto titled “Sankalpit Bharat, Sashakt Bharat’ (Determined India, Empowered India) ahead of the first phase of voting of general elections.

“In the last five years, we have made all necessary efforts to ensure peace in Jammu and Kashmir through decisive actions and armed policy,” the manifesto read.

Kashmir’s special constitutional status prevents outsiders from buying property in the Muslim-majority region.

“The next five years are crucial because in 2022, we mark the 75th anniversary of our Independence. Generations of great women and men laid down their lives so that we could breathe the air of freedom. It is our sacred duty to create the India of their dreams,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in the manifesto.

The party also pledged to facilitate construction of a Temple of Ram at a disputed site in Ayodhya, where 16th century Babri mosque was demolished in 1992.

The manifesto said the party will “expeditiously complete the National Registration of Citizens (NRC) in Assam and actively consider its extension to other states.” The NRC list is unique to Assam. It was first tabulated in 1951, four years after independence from British rule, to distinguish Indian citizens from illegal migrants from bordering Bangladesh, which was then part of Pakistan.

In 2015, the government began a process of updating the list. The new list includes only those people or their descendants who entered India till midnight of March 24, 1971, when Bangladesh became an independent state.

'Zero tolerance' policy on terrorism

The BJP has also vowed to continue the “policy of ‘Zero Tolerance’ against terrorism and extremism”.

The ruling party has also said that they are “committed to the enactment of the Citizenship Amendment Bill for the protection of individuals of religious minority [non-Muslim] communities from neighboring countries escaping persecution.”

Activists and political parties say the bill violates the country's “secular constitution.”

The manifesto said the BJP will also make “efforts” to double farmers’ income by 2022.

The BJP manifesto said the party wants to make the country the world's third-largest economy by 2030.

“India was branded part of the as ‘fragile five’ in 2014 … we have already become the world’s sixth-largest economy and will soon be among the top five. We aspire to make India the third-largest economy of the world by 2030. This implies that we commit to make India a $5 trillion economy by 2025 and $10 trillion economy by 2032,” the manifesto says.

India’s main opposition Congress party criticized the manifesto.

“For its 2019 manifesto, BJP has simply copy-pasted its 2014 manifesto & changed all previous deadlines from 2019 to 2022, 2032, 2047, 2097. Luckily they didn’t shift any deadlines to the next century,” senior Congress leader Ahmed Patel said on Twitter.

“The difference between BJP manifesto and Congress manifesto can be seen firstly from the cover page. Ours has a crowd of people, and BJP manifesto has face of just one man. Instead of a manifesto BJP should have come out with a 'maafinama' [apology letter]," he added.

India’s general elections, which will be held in seven stages, begin on April 11.