Maharashtra Polls: NCP-Cong Release Joint Manifesto; Promise Absolute Farm Loan Waiver, Unemployment Allowance

The major highlights of the manifesto, other than total farm-loan waiver and unemployment allowance, include free education from KG till graduation and special law for 80% reservation in jobs to local candidates or ‘bhoomiputra’.

Image: ANI

New Delhi: With the assembly elections just days away, the grand alliance led by the Congress party, the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and others, jointly released its manifesto, promising to waive farmers’ loans and granting Rs 5000, monthly allowance to young unemployed. “We are certain that the implementation of this manifesto will surely bring Maharashtra back onto the path of progress,” Maharashtra Congress said while sharing the manifesto for the coming five years. The major highlights of the manifesto, other than total farm-loan waiver and unemployment allowance, include free education from KG till graduation and special law for 80% reservation in jobs to local candidates or ‘bhoomiputra’. Establishment of an independent Marathi language university has also been promised. Making the minimum salary of workers to be Rs 21,000 and zero-rate education loan for higher education, have also been promised by the alliance. The parties have also promised to bring down the penalty introduced in the new Motor Vehicle Act. This time in the elections, the NDA alliance is squaring off against the Congress-NCP combine in the crucial contest characterised by defections from the Opposition camp. The contest also has the undertone of the BJP battling for supremacy over the Sena, which considers itself as the "elder brother" in the state politics. In 2014 polls, the BJP and the Sena had contested separately and won 122 seats and 63 seats, respectively, out of the total 288. In the Lok Sabha elections held this summer for the total 48 seats, the BJP bagged 23 seats while the Sena emerged victorious in 18 constituencies, with vote shares of 27.59% and 23.29%, respectively.