Today in Politics: Day after manifesto release, Congress top brass hit campaign trail: Kharge, Sonia in Jaipur; Rahul in Hyderabad

One day after releasing its manifesto, “Nyay Patra”, for the Lok Sabha elections at the All India Congress Committee (AICC) headquarters in New Delhi, the Congress leadership is set to hold rallies in Rajasthan and Telangana on Saturday to ‘publicly launch’ the manifesto.

While Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and Sonia Gandhi and other senior party leaders are holding a rally in Jaipur to launch the 46-page document, former party chief Rahul Gandhi and AICC general secretary Priyanka Gandhi will do it Saturday at the Jana Jatara rally at Tukkuguda on the outskirts of Hyderabad.

“Sonia Gandhi and Mallikarjun Kharge will hold a big public meeting tomorrow in Jaipur and will tell the people about the manifesto. There is a great enthusiasm among the workers for tomorrow’s meeting,” Rajasthan Congress president Govind Singh Dotasra told reporters Friday. The meeting will be held at Jaipur’s Vidhyadhar Nagar stadium.

In context: Facing an uphill battle in the elections and struggling to win back voter confidence, the Congress has, in its manifesto, announced a raft of promises to woo the marginalised, such as lifting the 50% cap on quota for SCs, STs and OBCs in addition to pledging reservation in private educational institutions, as Manoj CG reported.

The party has outlined steps to create jobs and ensure apprenticeship, hoping those would strike a chord with the youth, even as it has offered cash doles to women besides pledging to reserve 50% of central government jobs for them.

The manifesto promises a legal guarantee for minimum support price (MSP) for farmers’ crops, cashless insurance up to 25 lakhs for universal healthcare, and offers compulsory and free education from Class I to Class XII in public schools.

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