Political parties have a history of promising a slew of benefits to voters during elections and then forgetting about them afterwards. The competing parties devote a significant amount of time, money, intelligence, and energy to developing and disseminating manifestos with persuasive language and appealing individual-centric programmes. The manifestos designed and distributed for the Eighteenth Lok Sabha elections by all major contesting political parties have also made appealing offers to the electorate, touching on political, economic, social, cultural, and religious sentiments and aspects of their lives.

All political parties, however, conveniently forgot to include many issues that voters have long wished to have resolved, either through bureaucratic or political intervention. Public needs such as the exclusion of the employed class and pensioners from income tax purview, social protection pensions to the working class without a wage ceiling, cardless and cashless medical treatment to ever y citizen, phased nationalisation of healthcare services, and basic package of health services at every village, free education to anyone at any place, application of the compulsory provident fund act to the informal sector workers and abolition of toll-tax when life time road tax has already been paid by the motor vehicle owners (for they believe that failing to pay tolls restricts a citizen’s right to free movement as guaranteed by the Indian constitution).

Other expectations from the manifestos include a uniform and rationalised GST rate on all goods and services, including previously excluded goods and services such as petrol, diesel, and spirits; integrating MGNREGA with agricultural activities to generate year-round guaranteed employment in rural areas; citizen-fr iendly law and order, and rural road development with Central support are among the demands made by everyone in the country. Increasing the number of members of parliament from the current 543 to at least 2200, taking into account the growth of voters from 17 crore in the first general elections in 1951-52 to nearly 97 crore in the 18th general elections in 2024 is another issue. None of the manifestos mentioned these public requirements and instead began mudslinging at the other party.

There is a long-standing argument that salary does not meet the actual definition of income. It is a wage paid by the employer for services provided. The earner has no control over the amount of wage; it is the price paid for the service. On the other hand, income is defined as the rent on an investment, whereas pension is defined as the provision of care for individuals until their death. Nonetheless, the income tax collected, according to the income tax department data, from salaried individuals and pensioners is not more than four per cent of total budgetary revenues of Rs 42 lakh crore during the fiscal year 2022-2023, wherein the income tax collected from the individuals stands at Rs 8.33 lakh crore, amounting to roughly 19 per cent of total revenues.

The tax from pensioners and salaried individuals does not exceed a meagre four percent of total revenue. People do not understand why the government is chasing these peanuts while providing sleepless nights to salaried workers and pensioners. This issue has not been addressed by any political party. The second most sought-after assurance in the manifestos was the elimination of the wage ceiling for provident fund and pension contributions. The current salary limit for contribution is Rs. 15,000 per month and plunges a person into poverty after retirement, as evidenced by data showing that as of 30 June 2019, there are approximately 6.5 million pensioners receiving an average monthly pension of Rs 1,170 from the Employees PF Organisation.

This is due to the wage cap for contributions. Employees demand the removal of the wage ceiling. Universal healthcare is another major expectation in the manifestos of political parties seeking to win and serve the public. Despite learning a bitter lesson from Covid-19, our governments, whether at the state or national level, have failed to recognise the importance of ensuring troublefree access to public health. Hospitals are more commercialised in postCovid India than they were previously, and the issue of deaths due to a lack of access to health care should not be overemphasised.

Public expectations, such as converting the nation to a full federation through constitutional amendments, increasing the number of MP seats, and so on, may have political consequences for both the winning and losing parties. However, excluding pensioners and the salaried class from the income tax net, removing the wage ceiling on PF contributions, eliminating the toll tax, integrating MGNREGA with agricultural activities, and reviving India’s Planning Commission may not have political implications and can be included in manifestos at least now – better late than never.

(The writer is a former International Senior Advisor, United Nations Development Programme.)