The Congress on Tuesday released its manifesto for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections with its president Rahul Gandhi describing it as the “voice of people”.
Senior party leader P Chidambaram asserted that “wealth and welfare” is the manifesto’s central theme.
Rahul Gandhi was joined by other top party leaders, including former prime minister Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi, as the opposition party unveiled its manifesto.
Chidambaram said real issues in the country are unemployment, farmer distress and women’s safety among others and accused the ruling BJP of trying to take narrative to hyper nationalism.
Singh said the manifesto’s purpose is to spell out the vision for the country to move towards forward-looking and inclusive economy and polity.
The Congress chief said if his party is elected to power, its government would spend six per cent of the GDP on education.
His party will work to unite the people, he said, accusing the Modi government of dividing the society and spreading hatred.
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”.
