Hyderabad: In the parliamentary system of government, manifestos constitute and represent an important aspect of electoral politics. Political parties in India try to derive electoral support not only through their image but also through the articulation of concrete policy proposals.
Thus, an election manifesto is a published document containing a declaration of the ideology, intentions, views, policies and programmes of a political party. In Telangana, barring BJP, all major political parties have released their manifestos.
Congress, with its much-hyped six guarantees declared in its manifesto, has been campaigning aggressively. The grand old party believes that its manifesto has fetched power in Karnataka. BRS also declared a slew of welfare schemes in its manifesto and party supremo and CM KCR is explaining about assurances to the electorate in his public meetings.
However, BJP has not revealed its manifesto yet though the nomination process has begun.
G Vivek, former MP and national executive member of BJP, was nominated as convener for the manifesto drafting committee of BJP. The assignment of publicity was also allocated to the manifesto drafting committee. However, disgruntled Vivek was maintaining some distance and finally left the party and joined Congress. Though swapping parties is not new to him and he defected earlier also several times.
Not only did the election manifesto and publicity committee head left the party, but many other crucial leaders, who had left congress and BRS and were heading key panels, also abandoned BJP.
Komatireddy Rajagopal Reddy, who had been credited to give a tough fight to ruling BRS in Munugode by poll, was nominated as chairman of the screening committee. He too left the BJP and joined Congress.
The cine actor, Vijaya Shanti, who is heading the agitation campaign committee of BJP, also kept distance from the party for sometime and there were indications that she is also likely to abandon BJP.
The BJP leadership has constituted over a dozen various committees to placate leaders, mostly defectors from Congress and BRS. However, most of these committees remained unfunctional as their heads did not evince any interest.
