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The Bharatiya Janata Party, as part of the Mahayuti alliance government in Maharashtra, failed to keep several promises it made on healthcare and farmers’ welfare in its manifesto for the 2019 Assembly elections, a study has found.
Apart from the BJP, the ruling alliance in the state comprises the Chief Minister Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena faction and the Nationalist Congress Party faction led by Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar.
The study was conducted by MumbaiVotes.com, which is part of the non-profit civil society collective Informed Voter Project. The collective looked into the BJP’s manifesto published ahead of the 2019 Assembly polls and analysed the promises made versus the actual performance.
In a press release on Wednesday, the collective said that the Hindutva party made five promises about energy, seven promises on labour, 16 on transport and eight on water in 2019.
Less than 50% of the intended goals and benefits were achieved for 74% of the agriculture-related promises in the BJP’s manifesto, the study said. No promise was fully kept, it added.
“The performance with respect to 63% of health-related promises (5 of 8), was less than 60% (or medium performance) of the intended goal/benefits,” it added.
The collective said that 23 of 34, or 68%, of the promises in the manifesto were “essentially neglected or broken”.
According to the study, key promises broken by the ruling government included electricity for 12 hours per day for farmers using solar power grids. “As of October 2024, most farmers of the state do not have 12-hour power supply,” it said.
The collective also said that there was “no evidence of doubling of farmers’ income in Maharashtra between 2020 and 2024” as promised by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
At least 15,000 health centres were also promised by the BJP. However, no “additional primary health care have been established since 2019”, it added.
The study comes days ahead of the Assembly elections in the state, which will take place in a single phase on November 20. The counting of votes will take place on November 23, alongside that of the Jharkhand elections.