The BJP on Sunday launched a large-scale process of crowdsourcing suggestions for the party’s manifesto for the Lok Sabha election, with plans to reach out to 10 crore people over the next one month.
Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh, who is the chairperson of the manifesto committee of the BJP, and party president Amit Shah launched a portal, bharatkemannkibaat.com, a toll-free number and flagged off one of the 300 modified trucks as raths to cover over 4,000 Assembly constituencies where 7,700 suggestions boxes would be kept.
First suggestion is in
Mohan Chandra Pandey, waiter at Hotel Ashok in New Delhi where the event took place, was the first to drop his ideas into the suggestion box. Mr. Shah and Mr. Singh released the slogan “Kaam Kare Jo, Ummeed Usi Se Ho” (Expectations are only from the one who delivers) at the event.
The final draft of the manifesto will be released before the last date of withdrawal of nominations for the election.
Inclusive growth
Mr. Singh, addressing a press conference at the event, said inclusive growth would be the guiding light of the manifesto and the Modi government had given ample proo
f of it in its tenure. “Our government wants inclusive development. In order to give 10% reservation to those who never received it before, the government made amendments to the Constitution. We will not let any section be ignored,” Mr. Singh said.Party president Amit Shah said a 20-member team had been set up in all States to review the suggestions and forward them to the manifesto committee. The manifesto committee has been divided into 12 sub-heads based on subjects like inclusive growth, skill development and education, culture and infrastructure.
“The attempt is to fully democratise the exercise of putting together a manifesto. I would like to assert that unlike other parties where inner party democracy has been sacrificed to the altar of dynasty, the BJP has robust inner party democracy, and we are making sure that our country’s democracy is strengthened by this exercise,” he said.
Mr. Shah defended the government’s record on employment creation stating that large-scale infrastructure development and promotion of entrepreneurship had created jobs and needed to be looked at. “If you confine the definition of employment to only government jobs then we can never show high levels of employment through any dataset. The government has created a lot of infrastructure, supported entrepreneurship and job creation,” he said.
