Welfare of women seems to be the focus of the BJP's Madhya Pradesh election manifesto with the party list a host of schemes specifically targeting women.
The party has promised free scooty to girls scoring 75% and above marks in the higher secondary examination.
It also also offered free transport to college-going girls and a scheme to provide sanitary napkins.
The election manifesto which was released by party leaders in presence of Union Finance minister Arun Jaitley in Bhopal, has been released in two parts, a first for the party.
One part promises ‘prosperous Madhya Pradesh’ has been christened as vision document and the other exclusively focuses on women, is titled 'Nari Shakti Sanklp Patr' (pledge paper for woman’s power).
Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan who was present at the event said that if voted to power again, his government will create 10-lakh jobs every year.
Also, the BJP government will transfer bonus amount in the accounts of farmers based on their land holdings.
“ This will ensure benefit for those 17 lakh farmers who are deprived of the state government’s other existing farmer welfare schemes,” he said.
The BJP leaders claimed that the party received 30,000 suggestions for the manifesto and out of them 700 have been incorporated in the vision document.
The manifesto was prepared under guidance of the senior BJP leader Vikram Verma.
Union minister Narendra Singh Tomar, BJP general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya, vice president Prabhat Jha and state president Rakesh Singh were also present during the manifesto release at the BJP state headquarters.
Other features of the manifesto:
1. Free education to general category students from class one to PhD, including study for medical and engineering.
2. Doubling capacity of girls hostels and training to them in martial arts for self-defence.
3. Increase in seats in science, technology and mathematics streams.
4. Opening a university to impart skills to workers.
5. One woman sub-inspector in every police station to deal with women-related crimes.
6. Universities for food processing and tourism.
7. New pay commission for state government employees.
