Agartala: The BJP is confident of returning to power in Tripura and believes it has done enough work for the state’s residents to warrant a second term to continue the double-engine government as envisaged by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
But beyond promises, how has the party performed in terms of fulfilling its 2018 manifesto? Few locals have forgotten the string of promises the party made as it dethroned the 25-year government of the Left in Tripura. EastMojo analysed the BJP’s claims vs what the party delivered, and here is what we found.
Now, we understand that making promises is much easier when you are in the opposition. But once you form the government, you often realise the scale of operations at hand. With this in mind, one can see why the BJP is putting so much time and effort into highlighting what it has achieved, while opposition parties are leaving no stone unturned to highlight the government’s failures, of which there are many.
Of course, the ruling party claims it has done more than what it promised earlier and fulfilled 90, if not 100 per cent of its promises. The BJP leaders take pride in delivering things they claimed were “impossible for the Left government.”
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In 2018, in the run-up to the elections, the saffron party released a 28-page booklet containing as many as 299 poll promises. A shorter format of the promises was on the front page of the booklet named Vision Document. These points became ‘ten action points’. But, going by the government’s last five years’ report card, only a few action points have been fulfilled and that too, to varying degrees.
Jobs? Yes, says BJP. Where? Ask youth
Let us look at unemployment. The BJP, in 2018, knew that this was an issue at the heart of Tripura, and rightly so. As a result, the promise of employment to every household was enough to bring the youth to their side. And the BJP did it very well. The promise of wiping out unemployment struck a chord with the youth and it drew huge support from the public.
But if we were to look at the data, it becomes difficult to say the BJP has done well at all. Not that this has stopped the BJP from giving 10 out of 10 to itself on the job front.
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“There were around 7.5 lakh unemployed people registered with the employment exchange. That number declined in the last five years. Every government recruitment has become fair. Eligible aspirants are given equal opportunities to prove themselves and get selected. Many people have opted for innovative business ideas and giving jobs to people,” a senior BJP spokesman said.
The spokesperson, however, did not focus much on how many people had got jobs and for a good reason: according to the Tripura Education Minister Ratan Lal Nath, people who got regular jobs exceeded 20,000, which, coupled with outsourced jobs, touches the 25,000 mark.
“No previous government in five years could deliver that many jobs in the past. It has become possible because of the BJP and this will continue,” he said.
But while 25,000 may ‘seem’ like a large number, in reality, that turns to less than 400 a month on average. Locals also point out that chances of government jobs have shrunk, illustrated by repeated protests by teachers and other aspirants. In July 2022, we covered the issue of unemployment in our story: Why 81,000 job aspirants are staring at a bleak future in Tripura. And these were just aspirant teachers. And the 81,000 aspirant teachers were competing for 5,000 spots. So while the BJP may pat itself for ‘combating’ unemployment, teachers at the receiving end of police lathis may disagree.
The opposition also knows that claims of addressing unemployment ring hollow. Opposition leaders claim that even if one were to accept that BJP had employed 25,000 people, the number was still far from the “jobs to every household” claim.
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Social security? Well done BJP, but …
But what about social security, especially given how the pandemic wreaked havoc across the country, and especially damaged the rural economy? Here, the BJP has done slightly better.
“Over 3.18 lakh people of Tripura are getting Rs 2,000 per month as social pension. It was a pre-poll promise which has been fulfilled although the hike was in phases. In the first phase, the social pension was hiked from Rs 700 to 1,000 and later, increased to Rs 2,000 months before the elections,” Haradhan Sarkar, a BJP booth-level worker of Badharghat assembly constituency said.
Haradhan believes the increased social pension and over two lakh houses built under the PM Awas Yojana have benefited the public and helped the BJP reach every household. “There are two key indicators of the government’s performance,” he explained.
The opposition, of course, disagrees. “The houses were released based on the socio-economic survey held in 2011. Naturally, the present government should not take credit for the housing scheme as it was not in power then. Similarly, the social pension was hiked but around one lakh beneficiaries were dropped from the list,” CPIM west Tripura District Secretary Ratan Das told EastMojo.
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EastMojo spoke with officials at the Social Welfare and Social Education Department. One official said while the number of beneficiaries stood at 3.71 lakh, this number was brought down to 3.18 lakh during the five years of the BJP. However, the official added, the government would include 30,000 new beneficiaries, but applications have not started yet.
And while the focus on social welfare helped many, it was also timely because the BJP fell flat on its face in hiking the MGNREGA wage to Rs 340. The wage remained at Rs 212, a far cry from the promise.
No acche din for state govt employees
It was not bad news only for rural residents: even the Tripura government employees would feel cheated by the BJP promises. The Seventh Central Pay Commission for Tripura government employees was, along with addressing unemployment, the most crucial among all BJP promises. But the employees got a meagre hike in salaries by 0.32 per cent fitment factor. The Left government, before elections, raised the salaries by a fitment factor of 2.25.
The fitment factor is a multiplication number used to arrive at a common result. The 7th Pay Commission multiplied this figure with the basic pay in the 6th CPC regime (Pay in Pay band added with Grade pay) to determine the basic pay in the revised pay structure.
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In the name of the 7th CPC, the basic pay scale was brought on par with the central government, but allowances remained the same. A union leader told EastMojo, “The government has deprived the employees of DA for over four years. The government service holders now fear if the BJP comes to power, they will be starving for DA till the next elections.”
Smartphone or assistance? And casual labour?
In 2020, the state government launched the Mukhyamantri Yuva Yogayug Yojana for smartphone assistance to final-year students. According to the scheme, the final-year students of colleges could apply for smartphone assistance. Speaking to EastMojo over the issue, Naresh Babu, Director, Information Technology Department, said, “We have given smartphone assistance to a little over 27,000 students. In the year of launch, over 7,000 students got the benefits. In 2021, 11,000 students benefited. In the current academic year, 9,000 students have received assistance. Some applications are pending, and we will release the money once the polls are over.”
The BJP also failed to honour its promise of regularising contractual employees in Tripura, which, in 2018, had helped the party garner immense support from people employed as pump operators, Sarva Siksha Abhiyan teachers, madrasa teachers, daily wage labourers, ASHA workers, etc.
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Former Chief Minister Manik Sarkar feels the BJP never thought they would come to power and hence made such promises. “All surveys predicted that the Left Front was retaining power. But the intense populist campaign the BJP carried out helped them mislead people. Senior leaders like Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Amit Shah and others became frequent travellers. They flew an extremely ill Arun Jaitley to Agartala to release the vision document. When they came to power, they realised they couldn’t keep the pre-poll promises. This prompted them to resort to violence against opposition political parties,” Sarkar said.
Tribal areas dealt a raw deal
People following the run-up to the 2023 Tripura elections know that the battle for Agartala will be won or lost in the Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council elections. And even in 2018, the BJP knew this: the vision document had a dedicated section for the TTAADC. The BJP said it would give more financial autonomy to the tribal district council and address essential needs of people like food, potable water, housing and healthcare. The party proposed setting up 100 model villages and mini special economic zones for local resources. The party also promised to connect all TTAADC villages with all-weather roads.
Five years later, TTAADC residents appear clueless when asked if any of the promises were fulfilled. Instead, the incumbent TTAADC administration accused the state government of stepmotherly behaviour against the TTAADC.
“The state and the central governments are financially depriving the TTAADC administration. The state government has approved only Rs 619 crore for the TTAADC. In the first six months of this financial year, we did not even get 30 per cent of the budget. This is a clear example of an indifferent attitude. The total budget of the state is over Rs 26,600 crore. But the ADC, which is home to 28 per cent population, received 2.37 per cent of the state’s total budget,” Deputy Chief Executive Member of TTAADC Animesh Debbarma told EastMojo.
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Speaking on the issue, Chief Executive Member of TTAADC areas Purna Chandra Jamatia said, “The TTAADC council has approved a proposed budget outlay of Rs 1900 crore but only Rs 600 crore has been sanctioned. More than 90 per cent of the funds are spent on salaries. All the rival political parties are against the development of indigenous people of the state.”
Education and Health
In 2018, the BJP promised colleges in each assembly constituency of Tripura and AIIMS-like institutions. To be fair, the state has seen improvement in healthcare facilities. A super-speciality block was inaugurated at GBP Hospital, Agartala and some district hospitals witnessed infrastructure overhauls. However, the promise of an adequate number of multi-specialty hospitals equipped with trauma care centers remained exactly that: a promise. The number of degree colleges also increased to 25, including colleges in the PPP model, but it is far from the 60 colleges that the party promised.
Come February 16, the electorate will cast their votes to pick the next government in Tripura. If the 2018 promises are anything to go by, the BJP is in for a tough fight and the opposition can sense a chance to topple the government in Tripura. Only March 2 will tell us if the electorate gave good grades to the BJP or if the party failed in the democratic exams.
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