In manifesto today, Congress may go silent on OPS, promise to scrap PMLA

After making the Old Pension Scheme a strong poll pitch ahead of Assembly polls and actually reverting to it in states where it came to power, the Congress party is learnt to have junked the promise of an OPS for government employees in its manifesto for the Lok Sabha elections.

The manifesto, to be released by the party on Friday, will also likely promise scrapping of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002, whose ambit was widened by the Congress-led UPA government and later strengthened by the Narendra Modi-led government through amendments in 2015 and 2019. These amendments had given teeth to the Directorate of Enforcement.

Reinstatement of OPS was a key Congress promise in Assembly elections in the recent past, especially, Himachal Pradesh in 2022. In fact, many in the party attributed the Himachal victory to the OPS promise. In fact, the party had re-introduced the OPS in Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan, where it won in 2018; and did so in Himachal too in the very first meeting of the Cabinet chaired by Chief Minister Sukhvinder Sukhu.

When Congress-led UPA was in power in 2009, ‘criminal conspiracy’ under Section 120B of the Indian Penal Code was added to the PMLA’s schedule among various other offences. This has, over the years, allowed the ED to enter any case where a conspiracy is alleged — even if the principal offence is not part of the PMLA schedule. In 2009, the ED also got international jurisdiction as far as tracking laundered money was concerned.

Sources said the Congress manifesto would also refrain from explicitly demanding a return to paper ballot. In 2018, the party had passed a resolution at its AICC session seeking a return to the paper ballot system.

“There are apprehensions among the political