Maharashtra Polls: Congress-NCP promises farm loan waiver, Rs 5,000 to jobless

MUMBAI: The Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) have promised a blanket farm loan waiver, a monthly unemployment allowance of Rs 5,000, free education for students from KG till graduation, insurance for everyone and reserving 80% jobs for locals.

Announcing their election manifesto, the two parties promised loan waiver within four months of coming to power. The manifesto also promises Rs 1500 to senior citizens without any source of income.

Maharashtra Congress chief Balasaheb Thorat and senior NCP leaders, inclcuding Supriya Sule and Jayant Patil, on Monday released their joint 51-page manifesto that promises to increase the minimum wage to Rs 21,000. It also talks of doing away with property tax on homes less than 500 square feet.


It pledges to bring down the electricity rates for industries as per other states and also giving more price to milk producers. Interestingly, the manifesto has also promised to bring down the hefty penalties in the new Motor Vehicles Act. Maharashtra is one of the states that is not levying the new penalties.

Maharashtra has a debt of more than Rs 4 lakh crore and so there were doubts being expressed of whether the Congress and NCP could actually manage to deliver all these promises if they are voted to power. Thorat, however, claims that the Congress-NCP has every intention of fulfilling the promises. “What ever we felt could be done has been written in the manifesto. We hope that the people of the state will welcome this manifesto and will again vote for the Congress-NCP in the state,”said the Maharashra Congress chief.

State NCP president Jayant Patil said that the people in the state should not get diverted by the BJP campaign that is raising the issue of abrogation of Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir instead of focussing and solving the state’s issues.