From Our Special Correspondent
Daijiworld Media Network
New Delhi, Jan 6: Back in India after a brief foreign trip, Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister and KPCC chief D K Shivakumar on Monday announced “Pyaari Didi” guarantee on the model of Karnataka State’s “Griha Lakshmi” to woo the Delhi voters promising payment of Rs 2,500 a month to Delhi women.
Addressing the media ahead of the upcoming Delhi Assembly polls, which are yet to be announced by the Election Commission, at the Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee office, Shivakumar said the orders for implementing the Pyaari Didi that promises a payment of Rs 2,500 a month to Delhi women will be issued on the first day after forming the new government.
The Delhi Assembly polls are seen as a direct fight between Arvind Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and BJP, for which Prime Minister Narendra Modi has himself sounded the BJP’s poll bugle in a bid to unseat Atishi Marlena’s AAP government.
The KPCC chief said the Congress leaders will come out with other guarantees in the coming days.
Shivakumar recalled the recent centenary celebrations of the Congress party’s historic session at Belagavi, which was presided over by Mahatma Gandhi on December 26 in 1924. “We had drawn water from the well in Belagavi which was used by Mahatma Gandhi and later announced Gruhajyothi promising 200 units of free power as the first guarantee,” he said indicating that Griha Lakshmi and other guarantees were announced later.
Karnataka's deputy chief minister said all the five guarantees were implemented by the Congress government within the first three months of coming to power in the state and the guarantees have benefitted women and poor families to save up to Rs 5,000 a month, which has gone a long way in their economic well-being.
Displaying video recordings of the beneficiaries of the 5 guarantees in the State, he said there were no middlemen and the benefits are being directly transferred to the bank accounts of the beneficiaries.
Shivakumar said Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah, BJP national president J P Nadda and other BJP leaders had criticised the Congress party’s guarantees in Karnataka as “Revdis” and subsequently same or similar guarantees were announced in Madhya Pradesh and even in Maharashtra recently.
He assailed Modi for his unfulfilled promises of doubling farmers income, creating 2 crore jobs annually and depositing Rs 15 lac in the bank accounts of all citizens.
The Congress-led UPA regime under former prime minister Dr Manmohan Singh had implemented several path-breaking programmes like Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, Food Security Act, Right to Education and Right to Information, which were opposed by BJP but are being continued by the Modi regime.
The KPCC chief expressed confidence that the Congress party will come to power in Delhi and implement all its guarantees as was done by the party governments in Karnataka and Telangana.