The Congress on Sunday launched its official campaign tagline for the Lok Sabha election; “Ab hoga NYAY” centered around its minimum income guarantee scheme and party president Rahul Gandhi.
The manifesto titled ‘Congress will deliver’ focused on the agrarian crisis and unemployment, and the Congress’ minimum income scheme NYAY that guarantees Rs 72,000 a year to the bottom most or poorest 20% of households.
The campaign will revolve around key promises mentioned in the party’s manifesto including the NYAY scheme, universal healthcare, doubling education budget, the women’s reservation bill and the separate farmers’ budget.
Congress in its manifesto promised to enact the Right to Healthcare Act and guarantee every citizen free diagnostics, out-patient care, free medicines and hospitalization, through a network of public hospitals and enlisted private hospitals. The party had also promised to pass in the first session of the 17th Lok Sabha the Women’s Reservation Bill reserving 33% of seats for women in the Lok Sabha and the State Legislative Assemblies.
“The campaign focuses on justice, this word embraces all, it is not limited to the big promise of providing minimum income to the poor of the country but it also promises justice to farmers, youth, the entrepreneurs and the daughters of this country,” senior party leader Anand Sharma said.
The slogan was launched just two days before the first phase of polling after weeks of brainstorming by its publicity committee party spokesperson Randeep Surjewala, Anand Sharma, Manish Tewari and Rajeev Shukla, besides Bhakta Charan Das, Praveen Chakravarty, Milind Deora, Kumar Ketkar, Pawan Khera, VD Satheesan, Jaiveer Shergill, party’s social media head Divya Spandana and former Rajya Sabha member Pramod Tiwari.
“Gareebi par vaar, Rs 72,000 (hazaar), ab hoga NYAY (Attack on poverty, Rs 72,000, now justice will be delivered), this is our election campaign pitch,” Congress spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said.
The party also launched its official campaign song with lyrics penned by Bollywood song writers Javed Akhtar and Nikhil Advani. The party ran into trouble with the Election Commission on Saturday with the poll body objecting to certain lyrics. Senior party leaders said the concerned lyrics were changed by the party late last night.
The campaign has been designed by digital media firm Silver Push. The song and the videos launched by the party were created by media group Percept Limited.