The Congress’ seven poll promises for the Assembly elections in Haryana, which it prefers to call guarantees, are in keeping with what the party believes is by now a formula tried and tested in state elections as also the Lok Sabha polls.
The seven guarantees for Haryana polls unveiled today at the Congress headquarters in Delhi by party president Mallikarjun Kharge include Rs 2000 per month for women from the age of 18 to 60 years, gas cylinder at Rs 500, Rs 6,000 monthly pension to senior citizens, filling up of two lakh vacancies in government jobs, legal guarantee of Minimum Support Price for crops, up to 300 units of electricity free of cost, housing for the poor and free healthcare of up to Rs 25 lakh.
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The party has also promised to conduct a caste survey and enhance the creamy layer limit for reservation for the Other Backward Castes from an annual income of Rs 6 lakh to Rs 10 lakh.
A much detailed manifesto for the election will be declared in Chandigarh later. However, it is felt within the party that the guarantees it announced in other state elections as also in the Lok Sabha polls have found resonance with the people. The assessment is that the party organisation has also found it easier to communicate the poll promises in the form of guarantees to the people and campaigns can be designed around the themes that the guarantees embody.
Previous elections have seen the party come out with campaign material focusing on the different guarantees that cater to different segments of the society.
The seven guarantees for Haryana carry forward the main themes of the party’s campaign for the Lok Sabha elections, recognising economic distress and farmers’ problems as amongst the most important issues on which the people are expected to vote. Also, the promise of carrying out a caste survey takes forward the emphasis placed on the issue of social justice by the Congress, especially Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi.
The Congress won five out of a total of ten seats in Haryana in the Lok Sabha elections, which is a marked improvement over its performance in the polls in 2019 when it had not won a single seat in the state. The assessment of the party is that the issues on the ground had come into play in the parliamentary elections. In the intervening period, the party has been in campaign mode and has doubled down on the issues. Even in the Assembly polls that took place in 2019, it was felt that economic distress was a big issue and was the reason why the BJP that had swept the state in the general elections failed to get to the majority figure in the state polls.