Congress to come out with pro-people manifesto for LS polls: DKS

Bengaluru: Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar on Saturday said that the Congress' manifesto for the upcoming general election will be a pro-people one.

Speaking at the meeting of the Congress Manifesto Committee, he said: "The Congress will prepare a people friendly manifesto which will help all sections of the society. A similar exercise was done while preparing a manifesto for the Assembly election and we launched the five-guarantee scheme based on the same.

"The 10 years of Manmohan Singh government was about improving the lives of people, but the 10 years of BJP rule has not launched even a single scheme which changes the lives of people. Schemes such as Food security, MGNREGA, Right to Education and others were introduced during the UPA rule," he said.

"Though we are a progressive state, 61 per cent of the population lives in rural areas. As much as 96 per cent of the tax revenues come from urban areas, but the contribution of our farmers is immense and we cannot move forward without them," he said.

"Congress government has always implemented any scheme which empowers the poor economically, socially and educationally. We had introduced Nyay in the previous election and many schemes were based on that. The idea of the Gruha Jyothi scheme took birth in a meeting between Siddaramaiah, Surjewala and myself. Now, PM Modi is trying to copy that by giving 300 units of free power through the solar grid," he said.

"The same BJP which was criticising our guarantee schemes has now launched the Modi guarantee campaign. The BJP was criticising the guarantee scheme as a burden on the exchequer and is now launching similar schemes in many states. Congress always believes in bringing change in the lives of people," he said.

Calling upon the participants of the manifesto meeting to provide ideas which are rooted in reality, he said: "We have raised our voice against injustice meted out to our state. Other states are also raising their voice now. The Union government can set this injustice right if it wants to.

"We are working on removing the Nagpur Education Policy. I have had discussions with my BJP friends who run educational institutions and they say it is impossible to implement NEP. BJP tried to push the NEP down the throat of Kannadigas in a hurried manner. We have formed a committee to review the NEP under the leadership of Higher Education Minister M.C. Sudhakar."