Shruti Suman
New Delhi : The Congress party, led by president Mallikarjun Kharge, unveiled its manifesto for the upcoming 2024 Lok Sabha elections on Friday. Former party chief Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi, party general secretary KC Venugopal, and other leaders attended the event. P Chidambaram, former Union minister who chaired the manifesto committee, addressed the gathering. Notably, the release of this manifesto marks the Congress party as the first of the two major political parties to present its vision document for the next five years.
The manifesto, titled “Nyay Patra,” emphasizes the “five pillars of justice” or Paanch Nyay: ‘Yuva Nyay’ (justice for youth), ‘Naari Nyay’ (justice for women), ‘Kisaan Nyay’ (justice for farmers), ‘Shramik Nyay’ (justice for laborers), and ‘Hissedari Nyay’ (justice for stakeholders).
Among the key promises outlined in the manifesto are:
- Filling approximately 30 lacs of job vacancies in sanctioned posts at various levels in the central government.
- Implementing the Rajasthan model of cashless insurance, providing coverage of up to Rs 25 lakh for universal healthcare.
- Ensuring legal guarantees for Minimum Support Price (MSP) as recommended by the Swaminathan Commission.
- Protecting minorities’ freedom to choose dress, food, language, and personal laws, with an aim to reform personal laws through community participation and consent.
- Conducting a nationwide socio-economic and caste Census to assess caste-based socio-economic conditions and amending the constitution to increase the 50 percent cap on reservations for Scheduled Castes (SC), Scheduled Tribes (ST), and Other Backward Classes (OBC).
- Eliminating application fees for government examinations and posts, and providing relief to students by waiving off outstanding educational loan amounts, including unpaid interest as of March 15, 2024, with compensation to banks from the government due to widespread unemployment.
