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BJP makes tall promises in Madhya Pradesh
The poll manifesto of BJP, released on Monday, has promised to take back the 28,000 daily wagers retrenched by Digvijay Govt.
The election manifesto of the BJP, which was released by state president Kailash Joshi at party's state headquarters here on Monday, has promised to immediately take back the 28,000 daily wagers retrenched by the Digvijay Singh Government. It has promised clean and efficient governance if the BJP comes to power.
Union Law and Commerce Minister Arun Jaitley, party's chief ministerial candidate Uma Bharti and state organisation general secretary Kaptan Singh Solanki were also present during the release of the manifesto at Deendayal Parisar. Bharti said besides the manifesto, a Vision Document would be released by Finance Minister Jaswant Singh, Disinvestment Minister Arun Shourie and Jaitley here on November 20. The document would contain the blueprint for the state's development.
Regarding power, the manifesto, comprising six chapters, promises to bring down the transmission and distribution losses from the existing 51 per cent to the national average for 27 per cent, early completion of the pending power projects and priority to reforms in the power sector. Regarding the alleged 'inflated electricity bills' of the farmers, it says the party would get the bills from January 1, 2001 to December 2003 investigated and would consider waiving them on the merits of cases.
Power would be generated by the private as well as the public sector "Power would be distributed on no profit no loss basis," Bharti said. On roads, the BJP would emulate the Atal Bihari Vajpayee Government's policy and would build a network of quality roads in the state. The BJP's bases of the state's development would be the people, water, forests, animals and land. Without considering the six crore population as a liability, it promises to convert them into an asset. "The roads would be built by the Centre's help, by the Centre-State partnership and also by the private sector but with transparency," Bharti added.
The party would play an important role by walking in tandem with knowledge-based economy. The tax structure would be rationalised, Form 75 for traders and professional tax for the service class people would be abolished. New areas would be developed for employment through Information technology hubs. Stress would be laid on self-employment.
The party would encourage farming of medicinal plants and the State Government would play the role of a facilitator in the national and international marketing of the plants. The tribals would get at least a month's time for plucking tendu leaves against the week's time they are getting now, it says. This would help the tribals pluck more tendu leaves and earn more bonus. The manifesto promises to make the women self-dependant in the direction of their economic, social and political empowerment.
The basis of the development of the rural areas would be programme for urban amenities in rural areas (PURA). As the name of the programme and the acronym suggest, the rural areas would be laced with the facilities available in the urban areas. This would help the rural people get the same jobs as the urban people.
Bharti said the party's special focus would be on education, which inspires employment opportunities. The big cities would become quality education hubs. The BJP would send to the Centre within a year projects for linking of state's rivers. She said special courts would be set up for trying cases related to exploitation of women. The cases would be settled within three months and there would be no personal character assassination of the women. There would be at least one fast track per district for women.
