LS polls 2014 set trend of seat-specific manifestos

Constituency-specific manifestos are likely to be the trend this parliamentary election in Delhi with candidates trying to strike a chord with voters by talking more about local area problems as compared to national issues.

At least two parties in the triangular fight in Delhi are going local with manifestos, making it the first Lok Sabha election in the city to witness such an experiment.

The BJP and the AAP have plans to circulated constituency-specific manifestos for the April 10 Lok Sabha election but there are indication from the Congress that it may not ape its rivals. 

Taking a lead over others, BJP’s South Delhi candidate Ramesh Bidhuri released his constituency’s manifesto on Sunday evening. He promised bring more water from Haryana for the residents of his area and build colleges and hospitals.

Farmers’ rights to sell land in small fragments, augmentation of power supply and improvement of transport facility also figured prominently.

“Our campaign will kickstart tomorrow and before that we have come out with our manifesto for the constituency,” said Nikhil Kumar, a member of Bidhuri’s campaign team.Asked if other BJP candidates had also printed their manifestos, he said: “We did it fast as we did not want to waste any time. Others may do the same but our operation is not linked to them.”

The AAP’s candidate from South Delhi Devinder Sehrawat too is working on a constituency-specific manifesto.

“It would take shape by tomorrow,” said Sudhir Sakhuja, a member of Sehrawat’s team.Kapil Sibal, Congress candidate from Chandni Chowk, denied any move in his party to make a constituency-specific list of promises for the voters.

“These are national elections. We will have one national manifesto for all constituencies,” he said.

He said for a local connect with the voters, he had brought out booklets on all the 10 Assembly seats in his constituencies, giving details of the work done in each of them by him over the past five years.

The trend to release constituency-specific manifestos was seen in the Assembly elections last December. Both the AAP and the BJP had brought out separate list of electoral promises for each constituency.