“No proposal to amend RP act to make winning political parties accountable to promises made in election manifesto”, says Law Minister.

In India, nobody really reads manifestoes. The manifesto rarely impresses voters or helps parties swing voters — it has transformed into an intellectual and ideological exercise at best. Ideally, an election manifesto would be an important part of the political process.

An election manifesto serves several purposes in a modern day democracy like India. It helps to highlight the potential of a party’s stint in government to undecided voters, while spelling out the consensus agenda agreed to by the party’s diversity of ideological and regional special groups.

The challenge, however, is when manifesto promises go unfulfilled.

Ravi shankar prasad told the house that there is no proposal to make it compulsory for political parties winning general and assembly elections to bring details regarding fulfillment of promises made by them in their manifestoes in public forum in the third year and making recognition of political parties contingent upon fulfillment of those promises is under consideration of the government.  Therefore, in response to the query, the law minister has told in the Lok Sabha that there is no proposal to amend the representation of the people’s act to make parties winning elections accountable to the promises made in the election manifestos.

Manifestos are not legally binding; they are just the objectives of the missions one wants to accomplish. One can sue if the parties are not able to fulfill the missions. Manifestos tell people in which direction a political party will be moving.  But for an instance if a political party has published the manifesto in paper, it allows people to file a case on her if the same is not fulfilled. An AAP candidate, Soni Sori has drafted her manifesto on Rs.1000 stamp paper.

Submitted by-

Bhavya Verma- Intern