Congress manifesto promises to wed wealth with welfare

The Indian National Congress on Tuesday unveiled five big ideas for a prosperous India in its election manifesto. The document was released by Congress President Rahul Gandhi in the presence of former Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh, UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi, chairman of the manifesto committee P. Chidambaram and his colleague Rajeev Gowda.

“ When we started working on the manifesto a year back, I had two instructions for the committee. One, I didn’t want this to be framed in closed doors by experts alone. I wanted them to listen to the people and incorporate their voices. And secondly, I wanted them to ensure that everything included in the manifesto is truthful and doable,” said the Congress President.

Prof Rajeev Gowda informed that the committee met at 60 locations in 24 states and 3 Union Territories, solicited opinions on WhatsApp and emails and held 121 public consultations and 53 consultations with experts before finalising the document. As many as 1.67 lakh inputs were received, not all of which could be incorporated in the manifesto.

Jobs, farm distress and women’s safety, disclosed the committee chairman P. Chidambaram, emerged as the three foremost concerns of the people. He summed up the manifesto in two words, Wealth and Welfare. Wealth has to be created an distributed more evenly among the people.

Dr Manmohan Singh, who was consulted and who vetted the document, complimented it as a forward looking document.

The Congress President Rahul Gandhi spelt out the five big ticket ideas included in the manifesto. They are:

• Surgical Strike on Poverty. “ Gareebi par war/ 72 Hazaar”. This direct money transfer was an idea he had picked up from Narendra Modi’s pledge to transfer Rs 15 lakhs to each bank account. But rather than a jumla, he wanted a realistic figure and experts concluded that India has the capacity to transfer Rs 72,000 to five Crore of the poorest families in the country per annum. This would give the poor financial choice and independence and also help remonetise the economy after the disastrous Demonetisation.
• As many as 2.2 million vacancies in the central government will be filled up by March, 2020 while a million more would be provided employment in Panchayats. Besides the guaranteed employment in rural areas under MHNREGA will be increased from 100 to 150.
• A separate budget for the farmers will be initiated like the Railway Budget. What is more, in a historic move loan default by farmers will be decriminalised. While industrialists take loans from banks, default and avoid going to jail, farmers defaulting for even genuine reasons are put behind the bar. This will henceforth be treated as a civil offence.
• Education Budget will be increased to 6% of the GDP to give a fillip to schools, colleges, universities and centres of excellence.
• In healthcare, the emphasis will be on public healthcare and Government hospitals rather than private insurer and private hospital based healthcare pursued by the Modi Government.

The manifesto also includes several commitments on tax reforms as well as on national security and foreign affairs.