Sankalp Patra gives NRC a miss, sticks to UCC stand

In its 2024 manifesto, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has repeated its promise of implementing the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and reiterated its stand to draw a Uniform Civil Code (UCC), but has skipped the contentious issue of National Register of Citizens (NRC).

- ARCHIS MOHAN

Unlike the 2019 manifesto, it did not specifically promise to double farmers' income.

"In the next five years, it is Modi's guarantee that we will work 24 by 7 for 2047," Prime Minister Narendra Modi said at the release of 'Sankalp Patra', adding that the country's 1.4 billion people's ambition is Modi's mission. "Our focus", he said, "will be to improve the dignity of life, quality of life, and employment generation through investment." Earlier this month, the Congress in its manifesto promised 25 "guarantees" on five pillars.

The PM announced the BJP's intent to continue its existing schemes for the "four pillars of developed India" - the youth, women, farmers, and the poor will get an Ayushman Bharat cover of 5 lakh. The BJP has also promised to increase Mudra loans amount from ₹10 lakh to 20 lakh, expand the PM Svanidhi scheme to vendors in rural areas, build 30 million more houses for the poor, and provide piped cooking gas.

Modi said the manifesto prioritises "quantity and quality of opportunities" by aiming to create jobs through infrastructure development and sets the agenda to work on developing "social, physical, and digital infrastructure" that will be the "bedrock of 21st-Century India".