NEW DELHI: Emphasising that the unemployment rate rose to its highest levels in 45 years during the NDA’s rule, the CPI(M) on Thursday released its manifesto promising enactment of legislation for employment guarantee in all urban areas and a provision for unemployment allowance for the jobless.
The 48-page manifesto also promised to repeal the sedition law, scrap use of Aadhaar for welfare schemes, removal of RSS’ people from government posts and enactment of a law against lynching.
Calling the Prime Minister Narendra Modi government an unmitigated disaster, CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury said there was no dearth of resources in the country and if the current loot through crony capitalism was checked, then there was enough to provide healthcare, education and jobs for all.
CPI(M) said the reality was that unemployment rose to the highest levels in 45 years at 6.1 per cent and the situation in rural India was worse. National Sample Survey Office reported a 3.2 crore job loss for casual labourers from 2011-12 to 2017-18 affecting over 1.5 crore families dependant on incomes from casual labour and agriculture.
There was more emphasis on employment generation in the latest manifesto as compared to 2014 when the party called for ensuring payment of unemployment allowance to jobless workers.
Keeping in mind the growing rural distress, the Left party called for enforcing farmers’ right to sell their produce at Minimum Support Price, which is at least 50 per cent higher than the cost of production. The party also touched upon communal flare-ups and called for enactment of law against lynching and putting in place appropriate legal measures for reining in and taking action against organisations and institutions involved in spreading communal hate.