Maharashtra polls: MVA poll manifesto to focus on five guarantees

The manifesto will be released on Wednesday in the presence of Mallikarjun Kharge, Rahul Gandhi, Sharad Pawar and Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray

MUMBAI: The opposition-led Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) is set to declare its election manifesto for the state assembly elections on Wednesday. All three major parties in the alliance have planned a mega rally, the ‘Samvidhan Sabha’. It will be attended by Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, NCP (SP) president Sharad Pawar, Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray, among others, at the MMRDA grounds in Mumbai.

Uddhav Thackeray, Sharad Pawar and Prithviraj Chavan. (Anshuman Poyrekar/ Hindustan Times)

The highlight of the poll manifesto will be five guarantees on the lines of the Congress manifesto for the Karnataka assembly polls, in which the Congress had outsmarted the Bharatiya Janata Party last year. One of the guarantees will be a better version of the Mukhyamantri Majhi Ladki Bahin Yojana, insiders revealed. “We have decided to not only continue the scheme but increase the monetary assistance under the scheme,” said an MVA insider.

The five guarantees declared by Congress in Karnataka were — ₹2,000 monthly assistance to women heads of all families (Gruhalakshmi); 200 units of free power to all households (Gruhajyoti); ₹3,000 every month to graduate youth and ₹1,500 for diploma holders (Yuvanidhi); 10 kg of rice per person per month (Annabhagya); and free travel for women in the state in public transport buses (Shakti).

Another highlight would be a farm loan waiver to appease the agrarian community. The loan waiver is likely to be up to ₹3 lakh, insiders said. In its previous term, the MVA had launched the Mahatma Jyotirao Phule Loan Waiver Scheme, under which ₹19,644 crore was waived for 3.08 million farmers.

The MVA has also prepared a detailed document for each sector, explaining what they would do if voted to power. “The document has several important schemes for the people and a roadmap. However, it will be declared after a few days to keep the focus on tomorrow’s event,” another MVA leader told HT.

The MVA coalition also promises to conduct a caste-based census in Maharashtra, a demand the opposition has been raising often. This would provide a clear picture of the population of various castes and communities, including that of the Marathas, which have been aggressively demanding reservations in government jobs and education. Bihar is the only state that has conducted such a survey.

“We had to strike a balance between populism and our efforts to restore the financial stability of the state. For this, we conducted a study to ascertain the kind of burden each scheme would cause to the exchequer, after which we decided to bring in a few populist schemes and also cut down quite a few,” the leader revealed.

It was the financial repercussions of the Ladki Bahin Yojana that propelled the MVA to deliberate most. MVA leaders held several rounds of discussions, after which they decided to continue with this hugely popular and populist scheme.