Farm loan waiver and free power, smart phones, free textbooks and doles to unemployed youth, a promise to wipe out the drug trade and revive the economy all feature in the Congress manifesto for Punjab, a State in which the party has been out of power for 10 years.
Releasing the manifesto in Delhi on Monday, former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh hit out at the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD)-BJP government: “The challenge before Punjab is to rise above all this din and recognise that the people of Punjab need a better tomorrow. This election manifesto is a forward-looking visionary document, which promises the people that we will undo the damage done to the Punjab economy by the State government in the last 10 years,” he said.
Praising the Congress’s CM face for Punjab, Dr. Singh described Capt. Amarinder Singh as a leader of great vision with a wealth of experience and commitment to the cause of development in Punjab.
The SAD-BJP government had damaged the economy and polity of Punjab, he said, while promising that “Amarinder’s government will undo all this damage and set a new pathway... so that people have a higher per capita income, better distribution of income, better employment prospects and better infrastructure.”
The manifesto promises loan waiver and free power to farmers, currently burdened by a total rural debt of ₹67,000 crore, a stipend of ₹2,500 per month for unemployed youth, free smart mobile phones for youth, free textbooks for all children, free houses to homeless dalits/SCs/OBCs and one job in every family.
25 lakh jobs offered
If elected, Capt. Amarinder Singh said his government will create 25 lakh jobs within the next five years, crack down on drugs and corruption, introduce a new industrial policy, and end the VIP culture, while bringing in sweeping economic reforms and total transparency in governance.
On the contentious SYL Canal issue, he said that the Assembly will pass a law for not sharing any of the State’s waters. “We are not for not giving. But, we don’t have it [to share],” he said.
“For 47 years, I have been in politics and this is my last election,” he continued, stressing, “I am not going to contest again. People know that what I say, I fulfil.”
The manifesto had taken six months to draft by a team led by former deputy chief minister Rajinder Kaur Bhattal who had travelled across the State to meet people from all walks of life, he said, adding that Dr. Singh, too, had given his inputs for it.
The 120-page manifesto includes a 10-page charge sheet against the Badal regime, exposing the alleged “Loot, Boot & Shoot” policy of the SAD-BJP government that also lists out the multiple failures of the Akali “misrule” of the past 10 years.
Not surprisingly, the Congress’s rivals in Punjab were critical of its manifesto. The AAP hit out at the Congress, with Arvind Kejriwal raising questions as to why it had released its Punjab manifesto in Delhi, and why the promises made in it had not been made in other Congress-ruled States. SAD president and deputy CM Sukhbir Singh Badal also responded negatively. Mr. Badal said, “The Congress has come to represent a party of thugs who collect together on election eve only to fool and loot Punjabis. Whatever has been announced today will be consigned to the dust bin tomorrow.”
