BENGALURU: Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Karnataka president Prithvi Reddy has said that the party will seek public opinion for the preparation of a manifesto for the upcoming Assembly elections. He said the manifesto will contain solutions to people’s problems.
Speaking at the press conference on Tuesday, Prithvi Reddy said, “This is the first time in Karnataka that people’s opinions will be collected and a manifesto will be prepared based on the information about people’s requirements. Many parties pretend that they have gathered information by having a debate. Some parties hold discussions in five-star hotels. But what really needs to be discussed is with the common people and in the rural areas. Aam Aadmi Party has come up with a plan to make a system for this”.
He said that people from all sections of society are expected to participate in the process. “Even when elections were held in other states, assurances were given by the party in the form of a guarantee card to voters. And wherever we have won, voters have been given a report card about our achievements, and they can compare it with the guarantee card”, he said.
Recalling AAP’s “guarantees” to the people given by party supremo Arvind Kejriwal, Reddy said that data will be collected from across the state to add more “assurances”.
“On March 4, the party’s national convener Arvind Kejriwal announced in Davanagere the first list of guarantees to the people of Karnataka. Among them, he has announced the guarantees of zero corruption, 300 units of free electricity, guaranteed employment for the youth and employment allowance of Rs 3,000 per month until they get a job, farmers’ loan waiver, minimum support price, free quality education, free quality health care, permanent employment for contract workers. To add more to the assurances, data will be collected across the state”, he said.
“Once, there was a discussion in a party meeting that if the government had only a little money, should it be used to build a flyover or build a school? If a flyover is built instead of a school, homeless children can sleep under it. But if a school is built, the students who studied in that school will one day build hundreds of flyovers. As such, priority was given to the development of government schools in Delhi”, Reddy added.
Aam Aadmi Party state manifesto committee chairman Ashwin Mahesh said the party will continue the process which was adopted in Delhi. “With the intention of governing by listening to the people, information is being collected from the people and a manifesto is being prepared. Aam Aadmi Party has been doing this in Delhi since the first election, and we will do the same process in the Karnataka elections as well”, he said. (ANI)