Lok Sabha elections: BJP to release its poll manifesto on Sunday

Party sources said measures for the youth, women, farmers, and the poor, four 'castes' Modi has often spoken about, will be among the highlights of its poll pledges

New Delhi: The BJP will release its manifesto – Sankalp Patra – for the Lok Sabha polls on Sunday, April 14, with its planks of welfare and development besides a roadmap for ‘Viksit Bharat’ expected to figure prominently in its election agenda.

The party said Prime Minister Narendra Modi and its other senior leaders will attend the unveiling of the manifesto at the party headquarters which coincides with the birth anniversary of B R Ambedkar, a towering leader from the Dalit community and an architect of the Indian Constitution.

As the BJP government has fulfilled most of its core ideological promises, including the construction of the Ram temple in Ayodhya and the repeal of Article 370, all eyes will be on how the ruling party’s larger cultural and Hindutva agenda figures in the manifesto.

Party sources said measures for the youth, women, farmers, and the poor, four ‘castes’ Modi has often spoken about, will be among the highlights of its poll pledges.

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The BJP had appointed a 27-member manifesto committee headed by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh that met twice to deliberate on its contents after the party had launched multiple exercises, including vans sent across the country and social media campaigns, to seek people’s suggestions.

With the census and delimitation exercise likely to be held on the watch of the next government, political watchers are keeping an eye on whether the BJP will touch on issues like concerns of southern states over the delimitation exercise.

The party is likely to underline its support for the “one-nation one-election” idea, sources said.

With its senior leaders, including Modi, stressing the need for population control, it will be seen whether the ruling party proposes any policy measures for this.

The issue of the Uniform Civil Code, which remains a work in progress with the BJP pushing it in some of the states ruled by the party, may also feature in the manifesto.