The Congress on Tuesday released its manifesto for the Lok Sabha elections amid much anticipation about the details of its minimum income guarantee scheme (NYAY).
Senior Congress leaders, including chief ministers from the party, gathered in the headquarters of the party in New Delhi for the release of its manifesto. The event started amid fanfare with the broadcast of a video on alleged failures of the Narendra Modi government on issues such as agriculture, defence allocation and employment generation. The video also featured comments from experts such as Maheshwar Peri, CEO of Careers 360, and retired lieutenant general D.S. Hooda.
The Congress had touted that its manifesto for the 2019 Lok Sabha election would be crowdsourced and had invited inputs from a range of experts. Rajya Sabha MP Rajeev Gowda was the convenor of the panel drafting the manifesto, which oversaw 22 committees. Giving details about the manifesto, Gowda said the panel had received over 1 lakh inputs from various groups and had held 121 public consultations.
Senior Congress leader P. Chidambaram said there was “enough” in the manifesto to cater to the interests of farmers, youth, workers in the unorganised sector, defence, internal sector and other key issues. He said women's security, unemployment and farm distress were major issues and said the manifesto's theme was “to marry wealth and welfare”.
Congress chief Rahul Gandhi said he had instructed the panel that drafted the manifesto that he did not “want a single lie in it”.
The party also released a website for the manifesto: manifesto.inc.in
Key points of the manifesto include:
Startups won't need permits for three years.
The duration of employment under MNREGA will be 150 days, up from the current 100 days.
Provision will be made for a separate 'Kisan Budget' to cater to farmers' interests.
Fuel will be brought under GST in two years.
Reviewing the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, a key point of contention in the northeast and Jammu and Kashmir.
