• Adv. Rajiv Sharma

Since the time Shri Narendra Modi occupied his first public office, he has periodically been coining enchanting slogans to mislead the voters across the length and breadth of the country. If we look at the list of his popular promises made over the last 13 years or so, it is noticeable that none of them has been fulfilled. Be it his guarantee of bringing back the black money or ‘Achhey din’ or ushering in programs like ‘Make in India’, ‘Atma Nirbhar Bharat’, ‘Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao’, ‘Swachch Bharat’, ‘Start-up India’, ‘Stand-up India’, ‘India First’ or providing two crore jobs each year or doubling the farm income by 2022 or building 100 new smart cities or providing house to every family by 2022 or facilitating air travel for slipper-wearing poor citizens and many more, all of them have fallen on their face, with passage of time. No wonder these beguiling jumlas have a short shelf life and are discarded once they have served their purpose of securing electoral victory for the BJP.

Ironically, the alluring promises made by the BJP leaders, including the Prime Minister, do not get adequately reflected even in the economic policy framework of the government and the budget documents presented until now. The budget 2025-26 presented on 01 February 2025 has once again reinforced the opinion that the PM has been making false promises to the people of this country, including the weak and downtrodden sections, women, youth and the farmers.

The farmers and farm labourers, who make more than half of India, have become one of the biggest victims of such fake jumlas of the PM. While heading an official working group as Chief Minister of Gujarat in 2011, Shri Narendra Modi submitted a report to then Union government, recommending legal provisions to ensure that no transaction between a farmer and a trader is done below Minimum Support Price (MSP). He further promised in his election rallies in 2014 and 2019 to provide a legal guarantee of MSP for the farm produce.

But Budget 2025-26, like the previous budgets, does not speak a word about the need to provide a legal guarantee of MSP to the farmers. The budget document has totally ignored the heart-wrenching fact that on an average, 31 farmers are committing suicide in the country everyday due to financial hardships, whereas the profit of rich Indian companies is increasing year after year due to pro-rich and anti-poor fiscal policies of the BJP government. The corporate profit in the year 2023-24 was more than Rs. 14 lakh crores, up from Rs. 10.88 lakh crores in 2022-23. Even then, the government wrote off their loans amounting to nearly Rs. 3.80 lakh crores in the last two years. On the contrary, there is no mention of much-needed waiver of farm loans in the budget, despite the recommendation of a parliamentary committee to this effect.

The 2025 budget has taken no steps to incentivise Indian companies to invest in India. The government has allowed private companies to send up to Rs. 8700 crore every year to foreign destinations. Hence, instead of investing their surplus resources and profits in India, private companies are sending their money abroad to serve foreign countries. In 2024, private Indian companies invested Rs. 3 lakh crores abroad. Consequently, the private investment in India has fallen to an abysmally low level, leading to a high rate of unemployment and loss of productivity. According to the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE), the nominal value of private investment projects grew at an annual rate of 47% from 2005-06 to 2010-11, which has decelerated to a dismal 5.6% now, under the Modi regime. This has turned the much publicized ‘Nation first’ policy of the PM into a fake, rhetorical jumla.

The budget speech 2025 began with another intriguing slogan ‘Viksit Bharat by 2047’, which the PM likes to tom-tom from every stage. But by keeping capital expenditure at moderate levels and by not providing enough incentives to accelerate growth, the Finance Ministry has made a mockery of PM’s slogan of Viksit Bharat. It is no secret that in order to become a developed country, India needs to grow at 9 to 10% for the next 25 to 30 years. India was able to achieve this rate of growth from 2005 to 2011. But the presentsituation on the ground is that the economic ‘hara-kiri’ of the last 11 years has ensured that India’s per capita income remains below 140 countries in the world. In the last few quarters, India has been growing just around 5.5%, which is expected to plummet further to 4.5 % in the next few months.

On the basis of various indicators, most economists believe that the decline is not cyclic but structural. The budget 2025 has ignored that the consumption demand, particularly in urban India, refuses to rise. As stated above, nothing has been done to stop private Indian companies from investing abroad. Consequently, the private investment in India has almost dried up. Further, even after unprecedented depreciation of rupee viz a viz US Dollar, the Indian exports have not been rising either, while the imports from China are on the rise with each passing year leading to exacerbation of hardships for the manufacturing sector. As a result, the share of the manufacturing sector in the GDP has declined to less than 13%. In such a scenario, the employment generation is bound to take a further hit, reducing the PM’s promise of providing 2 crore jobs per year to a cruel joke on the country. In fact, the country has seen a reduction in jobs in the last few years. Not only this, the real wages are also on the decline. In a recent report, the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) has stated that in the last five years, the compounded annual growth rate of nominal wages across six major sectors of the economy has been less than the average annual inflation rate. This indicates a reduction in real incomes.

Given the fact that India is a young country today, it is not very difficult to push up the growth trajectory provided the government undertakes appropriate structural reforms in the economy. But this government has neither the will nor the capacity to do so, which is the root cause of the present mess. Taking into account the depressing trends in the economy under the present dispensation, the vote catching slogan of ‘Viksit Bharat’ is likely to end up as yet another elusive dream disseminated by the PM just to gain electoral advantage for the BJP. The fact of the matter is that the economic policies of the present government are designed to help a few rich people in the country at the cost of the poor and the middle class, which is evident from their widening economic gap. If we take out the top 10% of the population, the per capita income of rest 90% will match with that of Sub-Saharan Africa, which is less than 2000 US $. Even Bangladesh, which was one of the poorest countries in the world not so long ago, has caught up with the level of per capita GDP of India. For quite some time now, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has been trying to highlight the potential risks of rising economic disparities and falling growth rate in the country, but this government has failed to listen to the sensible voices. Despite such a doomy prognosis of the economy, the Prime Minister feels no hesitation in conjuring deceptive and misleading jumlas from time-to-time without a semblance of any policy back up, just for political gain. But the country is paying a heavy price for this. That by failing to live up to his multiple promises, the Prime Minister has already put his credibility at stake, which has not added to the prestige and dignity of the high office he is holding, in any manner.

The author is Chief spokesperson, Chandigarh Pradesh Congress Committee