In manifesto, SP promises separate tax bracket for ultra-rich, ‘humane approach’ in J&K

Samajwadi Party promises mahaparivartan (massive change) for social justice through promoting women self-help groups, a body to tackle farmer loans.

Samajwadi Party Chief Akhilesh Yadav releases the party's vision document at party office | Nand Kumar/PTI

Lucknow: An ultra-rich tax bracket, a “social education movement so that girls don’t need to be saved”, a women’s self-help group and a body to tackle farmer loan issues, along the the lines of the Kerala State Farmers’ Debt Relief Commission, are all part of the Samajwadi Party’s manifesto for the Lok Sabha elections, through which party chief Akhilesh Yadav said it proposed to usher in a mahaparivartan (massive change) towards social justice.

While the SP has allied with its old rival Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) in the state, the manifesto release event, at the SP headquarters Friday, did not see the presence of leaders from the latter two parties.

Akhilesh, however, said the BSP-SP-RLD gathbandhan represents the most oppressed sections of society. He quoted socialist leader Ram Manohar Lohia, saying, “A war on poverty is a sham unless it is also a war on caste and gender… The rich have become super-rich — in fact, the richest 10 per cent of the population (uniformly upper caste) owns more than 60 per cent of India’s wealth.”

The SP manifesto also contains criticism of the current BJP-led central government on issues of unemployment, national and internal security. It promises to ban all political messaging that uses the armed forces and says it will set up a Gujarat Infantry regiment in the Army without detailing what this entails or how it will be raised.

The manifesto also attacks the BJP over demonetisation and its flagship schemes such as the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan.

“Demonetisation was a cruel trick that impacted India’s poorest the most — its farmers, agricultural workers, daily-wage-labourers, artisans, traders and the millions of unemployed young people struggling to find a job,” reads the manifesto.

“The government’s flagship Swachh Bharat programme has instituted a systematic abuse of Dalits and lower-castes to clean the country — symbolic gestures such as washing the feet make the problem worse not better,” it adds.

‘National security, not pseudo-nationalism’

In separate sections on national and internal security, the SP’s manifesto attacks the current BJP-led government for using the “Indian Armed Forces as an electoral tool — accusing all and sundry of being anti-national”.

“This pseudo-nationalism threatens our national security more than any other external force…We will ban all political messaging that uses our Armed Forces in any form and we propose to raise an Ahir Armoured Regiment and a Gujarati Infantry Regiment,” reads the party’s vision document for 2019 polls.

It further stated that while Uttar Pradesh is one of the leading states in terms of recruitment in the armed forces, the party will have “a state-specific family welfare programme to look after the families of troops while they are away keeping us safe”.

On internal security with respect to Kashmir, the party plans to “focus on humane approaches within our constitutional frameworks” to strengthen the region’s links to India. It has also proposed a “re-evaluation” of the BJP government’s Kashmir policy “that has led to record levels of alienation amongst the Kashmir youth”.

Tackling inequality and unemployment

To address inequality, the party proposed that a Samajwadi Pension of Rs 3,000 per month will be given to “the women of those houses most in need”. In addition, it proposed that houses will be constructed “for the poorest for three times the amount of a similar central scheme” under its Lohia Grameen Awaas Yojana.

The party has also proposed the imposition of an “additional 2 per cent tax on the total wealth of households owning more than Rs 2.5 crore” and “a top income bracket for the ultra-rich”.

On unemployment, the party has demanded “that central reservations are immediately updated to reflect actual caste distribution in the population” and promised to make 5,00,000 recruitments in five annual phases.

On farmers’ issues

Maintaining that “no poll-sop or individual state” can provide a solution to the farm crises, the SP’s manifesto promised to bring about “a Golden Revolution for all farmers regardless of caste, creed or religion”.

To do so, the party has proposed the creation of a community-based financing model run by women based on self-help groups. “These self-help groups will be enabled by deploying a state-run institution based on Kerala’s extraordinarily successful State Farmers’ Debt Relief Commission,” the manifesto said.