Click to play videoNew Delhi: The BJP is going back to the people who gave the party its first taste of power - the urban middle class.
At that time, it was the Hindutva horse that the BJP rode to the Lok Sabha. This time, the party is offering the middle class a way out of the impact on the economic slowdown. So how does the BJP's bargain match up with the Congress's offer?
The manifesto says there’ll be no income tax for families that earn less than Rs 3 lakh a year (Rs 25,000 a month) -- that could cover a large number of the urban salaried class
The Congress hasn't promised any direct tax cuts but will bring in the general sales tax that will replace several other indirect taxes.
BJP also offers tax sops to retirees and women, where the Congress has nothing to offer
A big commitment that the BJP has made is to remove fringe benefit tax, introduced by p Chidambaram
The party also made commitments to the armed forces and the paramilitary that are spread over two pages. The Congress manifesto devotes just a few lines.
The BJP’s wake-up call that its losing its core urban vote bank came in the Assembly elections late last year. But even in the last General Elections, Delhi routed the BJP, sending six of the seven seats to the Congress and a similar story unfolded in Mumbai.
The initial draft of the BJP manifesto was finalised almost a month ago where the party had taken a hard stand on Hindutva. It was later diluted to the extent that the focus of this manifesto now remains only governance and development.
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