Lok Sabha Elections 2024: Congress believes in mass welfare, not privileges to few: Manish Tewari

Chandigarh: Congress candidate from Chandigarh parliamentary constituency Manish Tewari on Saturday said that unlike the Bharatiya Janata Party, his party believes in mass welfare and not privileges for a select few.

"Public welfare was and will always remain our topmost priority and preference irrespective of what our opponents say about it," Tewari asserted during an interaction with the people while campaigning in the Union Territory.

Accompanied by several Congress leaders and workers, including Chandigarh Congress president HS Lucky, Tewari toured various parts of the city and talked to the people about the problems they are facing.

Tewari, the sitting MP from Anandpur Sahib constituency in Punjab, pointed out that the Congress poll manifesto, named 'Nyay Patra,' is a manifesto designed for the masses of the country with its 'five commandments for justice.'

Tewari said that during the last ten years the BJP created a 'select and privileged group of crony capitalists,' while the Congress guarantees justice to the youth, farmers, women, and workers.

The former Union minister claimed that the unemployment in the county at present is the highest in 45 years.

He also wondered what happened to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's promise of creating 2 crore jobs every year.

"By that count, there should have been twenty crore jobs generated by now," Tewari said.

Instead, he said, the government 'failed' to fill 30 lakh vacancies pending across government departments.

The politician, who is a lawyer by profession, said his party will give Rs 1 lakh to one woman per family to bring that family out of poverty.

The Congress has done it in the past with the Food Security Act and the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), which revolutionised rural employment, he said.

Tewari claimed that even after last year's victories in Karnataka and Telangana, the Congress fulfilled all its guarantees, directly benefiting the common people and not just a privileged few. Polling for the lone Chandigarh seat will take place on June 1.