Congress Manifesto 2024 Lok sabha Election: Equal Pay, Job Assurity, Mahalakshmi Scheme | Check Key Guarantees For Women

Congress Manifesto 2024: The Congress on Friday released its poll manifesto, 'Nyay Patra', for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections that are scheduled to be held in seven phases starting from April 15. Congress' election manifesto focuses on 'Paanch Nyay' or five pillars of justice, including 'Yuva Nyay', 'Naari Nyay', 'Kisaan Nyay', 'Shramik Nyay' and 'Hissedari Nyay' as well as the guarantees made by it to the people as part of its poll promises for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.

Congress released the manifesto in the presence of party president Mallikarjun Kharge, Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and other top leaders of the party including P. Chidambaram, K. C. Venugopal and others. While launching the manifesto, the party also drew a parallel between UPA and NDA eras and claimed that the former surpassed the latter in terms of economic growth.

Here's A Look At The Nyay Patra's Key Guarantees For Women:

Mahalakshmi Scheme: Through this, the Congress aims to bridge the gap of inequal income and opportunities for women in India and to assure that every family has a basic income assured income on a monthly basis.

The Mahalakshmi scheme will provide Rs 1 lakh per year to every poor Indian family as an unconditional cash transfer. The poor will be identified among the families at the bottom of the income pyramid.

The amount will be directly transferred to the bank account of the oldest woman of the household. The scheme will be rolled out in stages and reviewed every year to assess the number of beneficiary families and its impact on alleviating poverty.

Women's Empowerment: It promises to ensure that laws intended to prevent offences against women such as the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013 and the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005 are strictly put into effect.

If elected to power, Congress stated that it will fund state governments to build sufficient night shelters for migrant women workers and an adequate number of safe and hygienic public toilets for women will be provided in towns and cities.

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Free sanitary pad vending machines will be installed in public spaces, schools and colleges.

Employment: In its poll Manifesto the Congress guaranteed to reserve 50 per cent of Central Government jobs for women starting in 2025.

"We will ensure that more women are appointed to high positions such as judges, secretaries to government, high ranking police officers, law officers and directors on the boards of listed companies," the Congress manifesto read.

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It also said that the principle of ‘Same Work, Same Wages’ will be enforced in order to prevent discrimination in wages for women.

"We will re-incorporate the Bhartiya Mahila Bank (Women’s Bank) that had made a promising start under an all-Women Board of Directors but was wound up by the patriarchal BJP/NDA government. 10. In matters of marriage, succession, inheritance, adoption, guardianship, etc., women and men should have equal rights. We will review all the laws and ensure equality between men and women," the Congress Manifesto proclaimed.

Congress, which has ruled India for more than 50 years with centre-left policies, has struggled in the past decade to compete with PM Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The Lok Sabha elections 2024 will be held in seven phases and the counting of votes will take place on June 4.