2019 Indian Parliamentary Election April 11 to May 19,2019 - DMK releases election manifesto with focus on State’s rights Tuesday March 19,2019

 

 

Assuring to provide honest governance and secular administration to the people, DMK president M.K. Stalin on Tuesday March 19,2019 released party’s manifesto for the Lok Sabha elections and by-elections to 18 Assembly constituencies in the State.

The manifesto for the Parliamentary Elections 2019 dealt with macro issues such as Central-State relations, separate budget for agriculture, education in the State list, abolition of NEET, waiver of educational loans, free rail for students and return to old pension scheme among others.

To unseat the ruling AIADMK government, the DMK has made constituency-wise promises for the Assembly constituencies for which by-elections will be held along with the Lok Sabha polls on April 18.

In continuation with its language policy that helped it capture power in the 1960s, Mr. Stalin said the party will urge the Centre to declare Tamil as co-official language in all the Central government offices, institutions and nationalised commercial banks in the State.

On devolution of funds to States, the manifesto said 60% of the total tax revenue of the Centre should be shared with the States and insisted that only the Inter-State Council should decide the terms of reference of the constitution of the Finance Commission. Also, the criteria for allocation of tax revenue should give equal weightage for performance and equity so that States such as Tamil Nadu  get their due share that will encourage further growth.

On petrol and diesel prices, Mr. Stalin said the Administered Pricing Mechanism will be reintroduced to control prices. Likewise, the LPG cylinder price will be fixed after deducting the subsidy amount. Mr. Stalin pitched for increasing IT exemption limit to ₹8 lakh.

The DMK will press for appointment of one crore youth, who have studied up to 10th standard, as road workers for maintaining roads in the country. Similar to the DMK’s Makkal Nala Paniyalargal in Tamil Nadu, the Centre should employ 50 lakh women as people’s welfare workers in the country, he said.

A committee with T.R. Baalu as the co-ordinator and comprising Subbulakshmi Jagadeesan, V.P. Duraisami, Kanimozhi, Tiruchi Siva, A. Raja, T.K.S. Elangovan and Prof. A. Ramasamy prepared the DMK's election manifesto