Congress to release manifesto on March 21

Sources say a meeting of the committee on March 16 will okay the final draft of the manifesto

Congress President Sonia Gandhi will release on March 21 the party's manifesto for Lok Sabha polls which is expected to promise some new right-based laws for health and employment besides specific pronouncements for employment generation and focus on manufacturing sector.

"Our manifesto is nearing finality. We will release it on March 21," said a senior Union minister, who is part of the team drafting the party manifesto.

His remarks a came a day after the party's manifesto committee, headed by A K Antony, met here to give final touches to the exercise.

Sources said that a meeting of the committee on March 16 will okay the final draft of the manifesto, which has been prepared after "exhaustive consultations" with different stakeholders through various mediums including direct interaction of a number of groups with party Vice President Rahul Gandhi.

Besides Antony, other committee of the panel are P Chidambaram, Sushilkumar Shinde, Anand Sharma, Salman Khurshid, Sandeep Dikshit, Ajit Jogi, Renuka Chowdhary, P L Punia, Mohan Gopal, Jairam Ramesh and Digvijay Singh.

With the party making its right-based legislations like MGNREGA, Food Security and RTI its key campaign themes, the Congress is expected to extend this health and employment sectors as well in its poll document for the polls, which seems to be a difficult challenge for it this time.

With the issue of women security being a major issue for some, which was propelled into limelight by the December 16, 2012 gangrape case, the party has received a number of suggestions like making a provision for at least six women police stations in all districts.

There is another recommendation to provide 20 per cent reservation in police and judiciary to women. Mahila Congress led by party spokesperson Shobha Oza has already submiitted a set of recommendations.

The party is also considering bringing into force certain type of affirmative action in the private sector given the fact that government jobs are drying up in the post liberalisation period.

The Scheduled Castes Cell of the AICC headed by Rahul's close aide K Raju is learnt to have made a strong pitch for a legislation to have a mandatory quota for the SCs/STs in the private sector.