Maharashtra Assembly Election: MVA Promise Rs 3,000 For Women, Rs 4,000 For Unemployed Youth

The opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) on Wednesday announced five guarantees ahead of the Maharashtra assembly polls at a joint rally here. These include the Mahalakshmi Yojana for women, under which Rs 3,000 will be given per month to one woman in every family, and free bus travel for women. 

The rally was attended by the Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, Nationalist Congress Party (SP) supremo Sharad Pawar, Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi, Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Udhav Thackeray, Congress chief in Maharashtra Nana Patole, party leader Ramesh Chennithala and some other leaders of the alliance. 

Rahul Gandhi announced Mahalakshmi Yojana for women. Under this scheme, Rs 3,000 will be given monthly to one woman in every family. Besides, every woman will be entitled to free bus travel under the scheme. The MVA promised to waive off all farmers’ agriculture loans up to Rs 3 lakhs. Besides, the alliance government will provide a Rs 50,000 incentive for regular loan repayments. The alliance also announced plans to carry out a caste census and promised that it would work towards removing the 50 percent bar on reservations. 

The MVA government will also provide health insurance of Rs 25 lakh to all families, and essential medicines will be provided free from hospitals. The fifth guarantee includes Rs 4,000 monthly assistance to the unemployed youth in the state.

Speaking on the occasion, the alliance leaders, including Kharge, Pawar, Gandhi, and Thackeray, asserted that the MVA was a united and strong force that would sweep the elections in Maharashtra. They slammed the BJP for “stealing” the popular mandate through splits and urged people to teach the party a lesson. They alleged that BJP was misusing probe agencies like CBI and ED to destabilise elected governments. Rahul Gandhi said it was an ideological fight between the INDIA bloc on one side and the RSSBJP on the other. He claimed that BJP and RSS were “infiltrating” institutions. 

“The fight is a fight of ideology. On one side is the BJP, RSS and on the other side is the INDIA Alliance. On one side is Ambedkar’s constitution of unity, equality, love and respect and on the other side, the BJP people and RSS people want to destroy this constitution; they cannot say it openly. If they say it openly, they know the result, the whole country will stand against them. They put pressure on the Election Commission and used the CBI, ED, and Income Tax department to topple the government. You must remember that the previous Maharashtra government, your government, was removed by stealing and giving money,” he alleged. 

Kharge accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of not fulfilling some of the promises he made in the past. “We have delivered our promises in Karnataka, Telangana and other places where our governments are, but sometimes PM Modi makes fun of us. He says Congress people always give a guarantee, but they do not fulfil it. PM Modi gave so many guarantees in 10 years. Did he fulfil any guarantee? He guaranteed to provide Rs 15 lakhs to everyone, did you give it? Then he said he would give 2 crore jobs to all the youth. Did he give it? We promise to provide Rs 4,000 every month to every youth until they get a job. This is a promise of the INDIA alliance” he said. 

“We made promises in Karnataka, and we delivered it. Karnataka government has kept Rs 52,000 crores to fulfil the 5 guarantees. Out of that, 47% have been spent. Have you done anything like this? You call it Modi’s guarantee. Which guarantee did you fulfil?” he asked. 

Kharge said Congress and MVA allies will deliver on their promises. “I just want one guarantee from all of you that you will make our alliance win in the Maharashtra Assembly elections,” he said. 

He said he had challenged PM Modi to come to Bengaluru and discuss how many guarantees given by his government in the last 10 years were fulfilled and how many guarantees given by the Congress-led government have been fulfilled. “I challenged PM Modi to come to Bengaluru and discuss how many guarantees were fulfilled that you gave in the last 11 years and how many guarantees we fulfilled that the UPA government gave.” 

MVA leaders urged people to oust the Mahayuti government in Maharashtra. Earlier, Rahul Gandhi addressed the Samvidhan Samman Sammelan in Nagpur and emphasised the need for a caste census, saying it would set a new paradigm of development in the country. Gandhi said that come what may; he would ensure that the caste census is carried out in the country and the fifty per cent bar on the reservations is removed.