INDIA'S main opposition Congress party pledged today (2) to expand a rural employment guarantee programme, reward businesses for creating jobs and scrap an 1870 sedition law if it wins a general election that starts next week.
Congress, founded in 1885, has consistently trailed prime minister Narendra Modi's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in opinion polls, despite winning three state elections late last year amid farm distress and a jobs shortage.
In a manifesto released by party president Rahul Gandhi, Congress highlighted job creation, tackling farm distress and empowerment of women as some of its top priorities.
The BJP has in recent days focused mainly on national security amid fresh hostilities with neighbour Pakistan.
"It is an action plan for the future of India," Gandhi said, speaking of the manifesto. "Now, it needs your support and your vote."
He said Congress would expand an existing jobs programme to guarantee 150 days of work a year to rural households, up from 100 days.
Gandhi also said Congress had won voters' hearts with a plan announced last week to hand £797 a year to India's poorest, a promise the BJP has dismissed as a bluff and some economists have called fiscally irresponsible.
Congress promised to simplify the unified goods and services tax, quickly fill 2.2 million government jobs nationwide and create one million more on rural and urban development panels.
On Twitter, it called the manifesto India's "new tryst with destiny", using a famous phrase from a speech made by Rahul's great-grandfather Jawaharlal Nehru, the country's first prime minister, on the eve of independence from Britain 67 years ago.
"This is an ambitious manifesto," said Shilan Shah, an economist at Capital Economics in Singapore.
"The income scheme promise, though a worthy initiative, looks implausible to implement, considering India's limited fiscal space. India does not have the financial infrastructure in place to give such handouts."
Congress, which had accused the government of trying to suppress dissent after the sedition law was recently used against students marking the execution of a Kashmiri militant, said it would scrap a law it said has been "misused and, in any event, become redundant".
It also vowed to amend a law on special powers for the armed forces battling an insurgency in disputed Kashmir to balance security needs and protection of human rights, which the BJP criticised as a move to strip troops of immunity in a war zone.
(Reuters)
6.9K views · 135 reactions | I’m genuinely shocked and saddened by reports that Will Jackson, Conservative candidate for North Harrow in the elections next month, has told British-born Asian MPs like Rishi Sunak and Shabana Mahmood that they are “not British” and should “go back to Pakistan,” He also suggested figures like Anthony Joshua and Dua Lipa aren’t British.I have raised this important matter in Parliament today, because there is no place for racism in our politics.I’m proud of Harrow’s diverse, close-knit communities. Every candidate should seek to unite people, not divide them.This matter must be taken seriously. I welcome the Conservative Party’s statement that Mr Jackson’s comments are wholly unacceptable and their decision to suspend him.But serious questions remain about how he was selected as a candidate in the first place, and why he was considered fit to represent our community.https://bylinetimes.com/2026/04/13/conservative-candidate-tells-british-mps-to-go-back-to-pakistan/🎥 👇 | Gareth Thomas MP 
