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Friday, Apr 09, 2004

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National

NDA agenda promises to ban cow slaughter

By Neena Vyas and Gargi Parsai

NEW DELHI, APRIL 8. Unlike in 1999 when points for inclusion in the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) agenda for governance were taken from different allies, this time it was the Bharatiya Janata Party leadership which got the document prepared.

Apparently, the NDA convener and Defence Minister, George Fernandes, was the only ally who saw the "draft" agenda and approved it. The others were shown the original document today when they signed it before the document was released. "We left it to George to speak to and persuade the other allies," a senior BJP leader commented soon after the document was released, adding that the paragraph on Ayodhya was, especially, read out to all NDA leaders.

Besides the Ram temple issue, the document has also made a commitment to bring in legislation for the "protection of the cow and her progeny." In other words, the government would ban cow slaughter, although the NDA allies had opposed this attempt in the outgoing Lok Sabha. Under a special mention on `civil society empowerment', the NDA has promised to encourage "religious establishments active in the social field" to take up mass feeding of the poor and care of orphans and the destitute, and campaign against "social evils" such as female foeticide.

The NDA has also promised legislation to make two-child norm a qualification for contesting elections.

In his opening remarks, the Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, said he was "happy and satisfied" that the NDA had provided a stable and working alliance to the country. The manifesto was an expression of the maturity of the alliance, which had fulfilled its commitment to provide development and progress. "But more needs to be done for India to realise its full potential," he said, adding that "India was ready for a big leap forward."

The agenda has promised to introduce a Bill to give 33 per cent political reservation for women "in the very first session" of the new Parliament.

In response to questions, Mr. Vajpayee suggested that even if there was lack of unanimity, the Bill would be passed. In the outgoing Lok Sabha, the Government had been willing to discuss a lower percentage of reservation, but some parties had opposed it.

There is virtually no issue that has not been touched upon in the agenda — it commits itself to "the ideal of secularism," and to provide a "corruption-free governance." The peace dialogue with Pakistan for a lasting solution to all outstanding issues, including Jammu and Kashmir, would continue.

From the promise of a "second green revolution" in agriculture to employment generation, from education to health, from a social development fund of Rs. 100,000 crores to a special financial package for the minorities to cover education, economic upliftment and empowerment [taken straight out of the BJP's `Vision'], the document is exhaustive. It has repeated the 1999 promise of creating nearly 1 crore jobs a year while the Prime Minister insisted that the outgoing government had fulfilled its 1999 promise. The agenda has also talked about wide-ranging administrative and judicial reforms while it has promised to double spending on healthcare. Finally, in the infrastructure sector, it has promised additional generation of 50,000 MW of energy in the next five years and, of course, pride of place has been given to the inter-linking of rivers project.

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