DMK manifesto vows to repeal CAA

Chennai: Setting the prices of petrol and diesel at Rs 75 and Rs 65 per litre and that of cooking gas at Rs 500 for a cylinder, repealing the CAA and reviewing and reforming all people unfriendly laws brought in by the BJP Government were among the plethora of promises made by the DMK in its manifesto for the Lok Sabha elections.

Besides releasing the manifesto on Wednesday, Chief Minister M K Stalin also unveiled the list of DMK candidates for the 21 constituencies the party is contesting from, kick starting the work for the polls with an assurance that the introduction of the Uniform Civil Code would be prevented to preserve India's secular nature if the INDIA coalition came to power.

While the abolition of the Governor’s post would be the objective of the new Union Government, till it was done the appointment of Governor’s should be made only in consultation with the Chief Minister of the State concerned, Stalin said.

The manifesto also promised restoration of statehood to Jammu and Kashmir and holding of elections there, scrapping the New Education Policy 2020, annulling Article 361 of the Constitution that protected governors from legal action.

It said that the recommendations of the M S Swaminathan committee would be adopted to ensure that MSP for agricultural products was set at total production cost plus 50 per cent and that the Agnipath scheme for the armed forces would be taken back and permanent recruitment service re-introduced.

The recommendations of the Sachar Committee for improving the lives of Muslims and other minority communities would be implemented and efforts would be made to bring in reservation for minorities at the all-India level, similar to Tamil Nadu, the manifesto said, adding: "The financial assistance previously provided to minority educational institutions has now been stopped. Action will be taken to resume this assistance."

Population censuses, including caste-wise censuses and censuses concerning people below the poverty line, would be conducted by the Union government once in five years, the proposal of 'One Nation, One Election' would be abandoned and for the allocation of Lok Sabha seats to States, the current practice, based on the 1971 census would continue, it said.

Besides doing away with the new constraints on States’ borrowing capacity brought in by the BJP government, a recommendation to share cess revenue with States would be made and a proposal to the Finance Commission to increase the horizontal devolution of tax revenue to States from 42 percent to 50 percent would be made, it said.

The Union government's financial contributions to states would be based on the income tax and GST collected from those states and the finance provided to states would be permanently determined based on the 1971 population, it said.

Apart from immediately implementing the 33 per cent reservation for women in Parliament and legislative assemblies, the DMK would insist that the Union government enact a law providing for menstrual leave to women, emphasizing the journey towards gender equality, it said.

The Foreign Exchange Regulation Act would be properly amended and measures would be taken to ensure that financial aid continued to reach NGOs without any problems to reverse the BJP government’s moves that led to the stopping of foreign funds, for political reasons, to NGOs

The Union government would ensure a minimum pension of Rs 5000 a month through the Employees' Provident Fund (EPF and the number of working days under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act would be increased from 100 to 150 days all States and Union Territories paying a wage of Rs 400 a day, it said.

Among the measures promised to help the people of Tamil Nadu were measures to reclaim Kacchatheevu from Sri Lanka to ensure India’s security and to protect the fishermen from the State, exemption for the State from NEET, complete removal of toll booths on national highways and stopping construction of a dam across River Cauvery at Mekedatu.

Keeping with the DMK’s long time demand, the manifesto promised amendments to be made to relevant laws to ensure that State governments appointed Vice-Chancellors to state-run universities and not the Governors and 50 percent reservation in Union government administered institutions of higher education for students from the respective states.

Reintroduction of a separate budget for railways, establishing the Planning Commission once again to draft plans based on requests from State governments by disbanding the current NITI Aayog and setting up of Tamil departments in all universities across India were among the promises in the manifesto.

Introducing a mandatory cooling-off period of 2 years for retired judges and secretaries aspiring to join private companies or political parties, restructuring the BJP’s ‘Viswakarma Scheme’ on the basis of social justice, waiving of farmers’ loans and educational loans and interests nationalised and scheduled banks were also promised.

The DMK also promised to pay women all over the country a monthly entitlement of Rs 1000 as it has been doing in the State and also the formation of State Development Council by including Chief Ministers.