Priyanka Gandhi sounds poll bugle in MP with five 'tested' promises
Darpan News Desk The Canadian Press, 12 Jun, 2023 10:53 AM
Bhopal, June 12 (IANS) Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi on Monday kick-started party's poll campaign for Madhya Pradesh Asembly polls with five promises on the line of Himachal Pradesh and Karnataka, where it won recently.
Priyanka's rally in Jabalpur also indicated that the Congress will corner the ruling BJP highlighting scams, especially alleged corruption in Mahakal Lok corridor project.
Like in 2018, the then Congress President Rahul Gandhi had promised to wave off farmers loans, and the party under the leadership of Kamal Nath had managed to return to power after 15 years gap, Priyanka sounded the poll bugles with offering financial scheme of Rs 1500 per month, LPG cylinder at subsidised rate of Rs 500 along with cheaper electricity.
Worth mentioning that the Congress promised to provide Rs 1500 to women (with certain conditions) under its proposed scheme 'Nari Samman Yojana' to counter the BJP's 'Ladli Behna Yojana' launched by Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan recently. Similarly, subsidised cooking gas will counter Prime Minuter Narendra Modi's flagship 'Ujjawala Yojana' launched in May 2016.
Besides these, the Congress also made another major announcement for implementing the old pension scheme (OPS) to gain support of state government employees and their families in the coming elections. The cheaper electricity is akin to the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) announced in its debut election in 2013 and since then it maintained the same in states it contested the elections.
"The Congress government in Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh and Chhattisgarh has restored the OPS. Our government in Karnataka has cleared the five guarantees (the poll promises made by the party there)," Priyanka said while addressing a mammoth poll gathering in Jabalpur on Monday.
Notably, the Congress made the similar five-point promises in Himachal Pradesh and Karnataka and managed uproot the BJP from both states and formed the government with absolute majority.
In her speech, Priyanka hit out at Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan-led BJP government highlighting issues like atrocities against women and tribals, unemployment, scams broke out in the past 18 years in Madhya Pradesh. Referring to collapse of Saptarishi idols in Ujjain's Mahakal Lok corridor, Priyanka said, "Shivraj government did not spare even the God."
Meanwhile, mocking the BJP's 'double-engine government' poll talk, the General Secretary said, "We have seen a lot of double and triple-engine governments, but people of Himachal and Karnataka have given a befitting reply in the polls."
Ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's state visit to the US on June 22, senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi will be visiting the country for a week at the end of this month during which he will attend several programmes. According to party sources, Rahul Gandhi is slated leave for the US on May 30 or 31 and will visit California, Washington and New York.
The Punjab Vigilance Bureau on Tuesday arrested Kushaldeep Singh Dhillon, the former MLA from Faridkot, for possession of assets disproportionate to known sources of income. A spokesperson for the bureau said a corruption case has been registered him along with Gursewak Singh and Rajwinder Singh.
The CBI has alleged in its FIR filed against former Mumbai Zone Narcotics Control Bureau head Sameer Wankhede in the Aryan Khan drug seizure case, that the latter concealed information regarding his foreign trips and buying expensive watches. The FIR has been accessed by IANS in which the CBI has made shocking allegations.
A passenger was arrested at the Amritsar airport for allegedly molesting an air hostess on board a flight from Dubai in an inebriated state, police said on Monday. Rajinder Singh, who belongs to Kotli village in Jalandhar, got into a heated argument with the air hostess and allegedly molested her, the police said.
A local court in Punjab's Sangrur has issued a notice to Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge in a Rs 100-crore defamation case filed against him for "objectionable" remarks against the Bajrang Dal. The court of civil judge (senior division) Ramandeep Kaur has summoned Kharge on July 10.
As per the new tariffs, which will come into effect from May 16, the charges for those having a load of up to 2 KW have been revised to Rs 4.19 per unit for the first 100 units (an increase of 70 paise per unit), Rs 6.64 per unit for 101 to 300 units (an increase of 80 paise per unit), and Rs 7.75 per unit for above 300 units (an increase of 45 paise per unit).
