Congress manifesto to be ready before Lok Sabha poll dates are announced, says Tharoor

Kolkata: Congress MP Shashi Tharoor on Saturday said that the first draft of the party’s manifesto for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections would be released by February 15 and the final one would come out before the poll dates are announced.

He also expressed hope that the opposition bloc I.N.D.I.A might choose elements from the manifestos of parties in the alliance and come up with one having a list of the core issues.

"We have our internal procedures. The first draft should be ready by February 15 but thereafter it has to be agreed upon and adopted by our working committee. But certainly, by the time the Election Commission announces the elections, our manifesto will be ready and out," he said.

Tharoor participated in 'Shape the Future', a programme jointly hosted by the West Bengal Pradesh Congress Committee and the All India Professionals' Congress, for constructive input from cross-sections of the civil society for preparing the party’s manifesto.

The Thiruvananthapuram MP is also a member of the committee to prepare the party manifesto.

"I think each party is going to be working on its own manifesto... It is entirely possible that the I.N.D.I.A alliance will choose elements from all the manifestos in common and come up with a core list of issues," he added.

Tharoor said the manifestos would focus on the issues of unemployment, price rise, the need for income support for the poor, women's rights, youths and farmers.

The objective of Saturday's interactive session was to gather impartial, spontaneous, and value-added views from different segments of the society on issues that they felt to be addressed by a union government, a Congress leader said.

Tharoor heard stakeholders from the Industry, Economy, Healthcare, Banking, Education, Information Technology, Human Resources, Literature, Cultural, Legal and Diversity segments.