Chennai: The AIADMK released its poll manifesto on Tuesday, promising a slew of welfare measures, such as a ‘National Poverty Alleviation Programme’ named after ‘Amma’ Jayalalithaa and delivering a monthly dole of Rs 1,500 into the bank accounts of ‘targeted population’ including BPL families and sounding much like a reincarnation of the famous ‘Garibi-Hatao’ pledge of Indira Gandhi.
The ruling party has also promised pressure on the BJP regime at the Centre to give up its insistence on Common Civil Code and also renewed efforts to have a regional branch of the Supreme Court established at Chennai.
In the 38-point manifesto released by AIADMK coordinator and Deputy Chief Minister O Panneerselvam and party’s joint-coordinator and CM Edappadi K. Palaniswami at the party headquarters here, there were also exciting promises such as abolishing of NEET, release of the seven convicts in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case and constitution of a nodal agency for generating data on overseas employment to help unemployed youth, besides steps to bring back education to the state list.
The high point of the AIADMK manifesto is certainly the promise to implement a direct transfer scheme — Amma National Poverty Eradication Initiative (ANPEI) for transferring Rs 1,500 into the bank accounts of BPL families, destitute women, widows without income, differently-abled, landless agricultural labourers, rural and urban manual labourers and destitute senior citizens.
The ruling party has also promised constitution of a nodal agency for generating data on overseas employment and match this data with the beneficiaries of MGR National Skill Upgradation Scheme (MGR NSUS), implementation of special schemes to mitigate adverse impact of recession on the farm, industrial and service sectors of the economy.
"AIADMK will urge the Government of India to bring Education from the concurrent list to the State list again. The party will urge the Government of India to exempt Tamil Nadu students for such time till they reach the standard and knowledge of the Improved New Syllabus, from Neet Examination for professional courses as the Neet exams adversely affects the rural students", said the manifesto.
It has also promised legislation for implementation of the reservation policy in private sector, adoption of 'Girl Child Protection Scheme' and the 'Cradle Baby Scheme', besides support to the passing of Bill providing 33% reservation for women.
On the Sri Lankan front, the AIADMK has promised it would urgent the Indian Government to pressure Colombo on due devolution of administrative powers to the Tamil regions and also for providing constitutional guarantee for Eelam Tamils with regard to human, property, language and religious rights.
The AIADMK manifesto has also promised that the party would urge the Government of India and the President of India to give due direction to the Governor (Banwarilal Purohit) to allow the release of the seven Rajiv assassination case convicts "as ordered by the Supreme Court and approved by the Cabinet of Tamil Nadu Government".
The poll manifesto of the ruling party has also pledged it would exert pressure on the Centre to refrain from bringing any amendments to the Constitution for a Uniform Code that would seriously impact the religious rights of the minorities in India.
Turning to the language issue, the AIADMK document has promised steps to get Tamil recognised as one of the official languages of the country and also be declared as the official court language at the Madras High Court. "AIADMK will urge Government of India to halt the imposition of Hindi in the Central Government offices in Tamil Nadu and in "certain spheres of the functions of State Government," it said, adding that the Centre would also be pressured to devolve 60 per cent of Central tax revenues to the State based on 1971 census.
