Congress promises electric scooters for girl students in Telangana

Mulugu (Telangana), Oct 18 (IANS) The Congress party has promised that if voted to power in Telangana, girl students above the age of 18 years will be given electric scooters while SC ST families will be provided financial assistance of Rs12 lakh.

Party General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi made the announcements at a public meeting here on Wednesday while launching the party’s campaign for next month’s assembly elections.

She announced some promises which are in addition to the six guarantees unveiled by the party last month.

Under the Ambedkar Abhaya Hastham scheme, an assistance of Rs12 lakh each will be provided to SC ST families.

This appears on the lines of Dalit Bandhu scheme of the BRS government, under which it claims to be providing a grant of Rs10 lakh to every Dalit family.

Priyanka Gandhi announced that reservation for SCs will be increased to 18 per cent and for STs to 12 per cent.

Under the Indiramma Pucca House scheme, landless SC and ST families will get land and Rs 6 lakh for building houses. Every Adivasi gram panchayat will be provided an assistance of Rs 25 lakh.

She reiterated that 2 lakh job vacancies will be filled within a year while the unemployed will be paid Rs 4,000 monthly allowance. A government job will be provided to families of Telangana martyrs.

The Congress leader said a special Gulf Cell will be created to help youth secure employment opportunities in the Gulf countries.

She appealed to people to cast their vote wisely to give a good future to their children and to realize the dreams for which Telangana state was created.

Recalling BRS party’s promise of Bangaru Telangana, she said the party had failed to fulfill the people’s aspirations. 

“Where is social justice? Three out of 18 ministers are from the Chief Minister’s family and they hold 13 ministries,” she said.

The Congress leader said while backward classes are more than 50 per cent of the population, there are only three ministers from BCs.

Referring to the issue of caste survey, she pointed out that the survey done in Bihar revealed that OBCs, Adviasis and SCs are 84 per cent of the state’s population but they don’t have equal representation

“This is true of the entire country. We want a survey but they are silent. They don’t even want to count the numbers. They are afraid of counting, not to talk about giving rights,” she said.

Stating that the Congress party has prepared a roadmap and vision for Telangana, she referred to the guarantees already announced by the party.

She claimed that the dream of Telangana was a dream of development, jobs and social justice. “You trusted BRS in the previous elections and hoped that you will get jobs within your own state, have a secured future and there will be inclusive development,” she said.

Priyanka Gandhi said her mother Sonia Gandhi, who was the president of Congress party at that time took a decision to create Telangana state despite knowing well that the party may suffer politically.

Stating that there are 40 lakh jobless youth in Telangana, she said the BRS failed to fulfill its promise of providing a job for every family. “Today there are lakhs of vacancies but there are no jobs. There is corruption in recruitment,” she said.

The Congress leader also referred to the recent incident of suicide by a student in Hyderabad. She said it was unfortunate that instead of understanding youth’s pain, doubts were being raised about the cause of the suicide.

She slammed the BRS government for being hand in glove with the BJP and remarked that Prime Minister Narendra Modi was running the government by remote control.

Alleging that there are land, sand, mine and wine mafias in the state looting the people, she said the government was trying to protect these mafias.