Our Correspondents
The Nationalist Congress Party released the party election manifesto simultaneously in Mumbai and New Delhi today. Senior party leader and former minister Dilip Valse Patil said the manifesto tag line is ‘Aao milke desh banaye’ (Come let’s build the nation together).
He said the manifesto mostly focuses on issues pertaining to farmers, youth, and women. It also highlights the works done by the UPA government during its tenure.
The manifesto also underlines the party’s stand on financial development, employment generation, uplift of micro small, and medium businesses; amendments in labour laws and taxation, right to health care and rural development.
“We will open talks with Pakistan during which we will insist on discussing terrorism” the NCP promises.
The manifesto said that demonetisation has drastically slowed down economic growth and impacted
GDP significantly. We will bring out a white paper on this issue.
It said that effective steps will be taken to curb attempts to demonise and criminalise dissent, which is being construed
as harming the nation by the Present Government.
On minorities, the manifesto said that attacks by fringe elements on religious minorities have substantially surged. Religious-based hate-crimes – mainly targeting Dalits, Muslims and Christians- have increased significantly since 2014. There has been little action to curb such instances; nothing has been done to tackle the growing religious polarisation. In fact, such forces have been emboldened by giving a free hand to such elements with the tacit support of Government machinery. We are committed to protect the interests of minorities. Special attention will be paid to curb violence and punish culprits. Cases of violence will be investigated in a time bound manner and disposal will be targeted in special courts.