With the electoral season on, it is going to be raining manifestos. Manifestos are useful documents as they reflect the thinking and priorities of the political parties, besides enabling people to hold the elected party accountable. Given the high stakes and the trend towards current competitive welfarism, the manifestos for 2024 are expected to contain wild promises. It will be interesting to see what space will be accorded to health, education and jobs in the current discourse blinded with temples and distributing consumer goods.
The political outlook
The health section in the 2014 and 2019 manifestos of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Indian National Congress showed commonalities and differentials. Both mentioned revamping the primary health system, ensuring universal health care, expanding human resources, increasing use of technology and so on. The differential was with the Congress underscoring health as a public good that citizens are entitled to as a right and the States’ obligation to provide, while the BJP saw health as a commodity, provided through public private partnerships with market based pricing moderated by social health insurance.
