Congress to Start Finalizing Lok Sabha Poll Candidates, Approve Manifesto Early March

Congress is set to finalise its candidates and clear its manifesto for the forthcoming Lok Sabha polls early next month. Party insiders say that the maiden list of candidates will be cleared by the first week of March. Reports ETV Bharat's Amit Agnihotri.

New Delhi: The Congress has got into the poll mode and will start finalizing the Lok Sabha candidates besides approving the manifesto in the first week of March.

According to party insiders, while the Central Election Committee to be chaired by party chief Mallikarjun Kharge is likely to meet on March 1 or 2 to start approving the first list of party nominees, the manifesto committee headed by former union minister P Chidambaram will finalize the draft on March 4, which will then be approved by the Congress Working Committee over the next few days.

“The party can easily finalize the nominees on seats where the sitting MP is likely to be repeated or in case of a change the new person has been identified. The party’s internal survey would play a role here besides the recommendations from the various screening committees. The first list is likely to be approved in March first week and the candidates would be alerted though the names may be announced strategically once the poll schedule is out. The Election Commission is likely to announce the dates any time after March 13 and we should be ready,” a senior AICC functionary said.

The Congress poll manifesto to be finalized on March 4 is likely to promise scrapping of controversial Agniveer defense jobs scheme, giving legal guarantee for crop MSP, recasting the GST, conducting a fresh caste census, implementing 33 percent reservation for women in Lok Sabha and state assemblies at the earliest, creation of jobs, streamlining recruitment exams, and financial support to poor across the country.

The poll manifesto committee had held its first meeting on Jan 4. Since then, the panel held seven rounds of consultations among the members. Separately, the members also interacted with various social groups including farmers, professionals, students, women, workers etc to solicit their views.

“The draft will be discussed and approved by the panel on March 4. It will then be sent to the party president for further action,” Congress manifesto committee convenor TS Singh Deo told ETV Bharat. According to party insiders, the manifesto will reflect Rahul Gandhi’s focus on ensuring social and economic justice if the INDIA alliance comes to power.

As Priyanka Gandhi Vadra is also a member of the manifesto panel, the draft will also have substantial assurances for the women voters, said party insiders. Given that the former finance minister Chidambaram heads the panel, the party manifesto is also likely to list policy changes the Congress would bring about to introduce corrections in the system and ensure actual growth.

Over the past years, Congress leaders like Chidambaram and Jairam Ramesh have been pointing out the challenges before the Indian economy and saying that growth was not distributed equally among the various sections of society.

They had also countered the Centre’s charge that the previous UPA government was responsible for slowing down the economy. Instead, the party leaders had questioned the Centre’s claims on economic growth saying there was stress on key sectors like farming and manufacturing and that people’s savings had actually dipped due to high prices of essential items and reduced incomes.

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