Congress Manifesto to Take Out Dharani, Bring Bhu Bharati

Hyderabad: The Congress, which has repeatedly attacked the BRS government’s Dharani land portal, is likely to bring in ‘Bhu Bharathi’, another portal, in its place if it wins the election. AICC president Mallikarjun Kharge, who will be in the city on Friday to release the party’s manifesto for the upcoming polls, is expected to give more clarity on how it would differ from Dharani and what it would do better to safeguard land rights.

Besides this, the manifesto is also expected to offer several sops to all sections, sources said.

Since its introduction in October 2020, the Dharani portal has been a bone of contention for Opposition parties, who have now turned it into a poll plank, with both the BJP and Congress promising to scrap the portal if they win the elections.

The Opposition contends that the ruling party used the portal to grab farmland, besides grabbing assigned land parcels from SCs and STs, allotted by previous regimes.

The BRS, on the other hand, is countering these allegations by terming the Dharani portal as a progressive reform that gives farmers control over their land. It has repeatedly stated that in the absence of Dharani, land records and registrations would get lost in a vicious bureaucratic cycle.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, in his Farmers' Declaration released last October in Warangal, announced for the first time that Congress would abolish the Dharani portal if voted to power.

Since then, the party has been aggressively campaigning against the portal, with all public meetings addressed by top Congress leaders finding mention of it.

However, there are differences within the Congress over naming the new portal ‘Bhu Bharathi’, as a project with the same name was launched by the Y.S. Rajashekar Reddy-led Congress government for digitisation of land records in 2005. The project was launched on a pilot basis in the Nizamabad district, but the Congress government failed to complete even the pilot project by 2014, till it remained in power.

A section of leaders has suggested that the party leadership scout for a new name, as using the same name would give unnecessary scope for rival parties to attack Congress and accuse it of replacing Dharani “with another failed project.”

 

Sops expected in Congress manifesto:

1. 10 grams of gold and Rs 1 lakh cash to BPL families for women’s weddings

2. Free Metro rail travel for female students from Intermediate level and above

3. Free internet to students

4. Salaries to ration dealers, along with commission on sales

5. Identity cards for RMPs and PMPs

6. Restoring ‘Abhaya Hastham’ scheme for women SHGs, to extend monthly pensions

7. Salaries to ward members in gram panchayats

8. Restoring ‘Amma Hastham’ scheme to provide nine essential food items to ration card holders at subsidised rates

9. Special corporation for MBCs (most backward classes)