Excess spending on poll doles to hit growth: VP Dhankhar

Vice-President Jagdeep Dhankhar on Thursday said a national debate was needed to address the shift from democracy to “emocracy”, a term he expanded as “emotion driven policy which threatens good governance”.

Addressing the inaugural Murli Deora Memorial Dialogues on the theme “Leadership And Governance” in Mumbai, the Vice-President called for a national debate on the shift from democracy to “emocracy”.

“Emotion-driven policies and emotion-driven debates, discourses threaten good governance. Historically, populism is bad economics. And once a leader gets attached to populism it is difficult to get out of the crisis. The central factor must be the good of the people, the largest good of the people and the lasting good of the people. Empower people to empower themselves rather than empower them momentarily because that affects their productivity,” he said.

Dhankhar expressed deep concern over the emergence of appeasement politics and placatory strategies across the political spectrum, and noted that there was emergence of a new strategy and the strategy is of appeasement or being placatory.

“If there is excessive spending on electoral promises, then the state's ability to invest in infrastructure is correspondingly reduced. This is detrimental to the growth scenario. Election is important in democracy but not the end of it. I would call upon the leadership of all political parties in the interest of democratic values to generate a consensus that engaging in such electoral promises, which can be performed only at the cost of capital expenditure of the state, must be reviewed. Some governments that took recourse to this appeasement and placatory mechanisms are finding it very difficult to sustain in power,” he said.

The VP clarified that affirmative action for marginalised communities was distinct from appeasement politics and said, “I should not be misunderstood because while the Constitution has given us the right of equality, it does provide in Article 14, 15, and 16 an acceptable category of affirmative governance — affirmative action, reservation for SC/ST, for those who are in the economically weaker section. That is sanctified. There are exceptional situations for rural India, for the farmer, where affirmative steps are required to be taken. But this is very distinct from other aspects. This is not placatory or appeasing. It is justifiable economic policy. And therefore, it is good leadership that can take a call on where to draw the line in the fiscal sense in the matter of political foresight and leadership spine.”