Cong. promises right to apprenticeship for youth below 25 years
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi will seek reelection from the Wayanad Lok Sabha seat in Kerala in the upcoming elections. He was one of the 39 candidates in the party’s first list, released on Friday.
Other prominent names in the first list are former Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel, to contest from Rajnandgaon in Chhattisgarh; party general secretary (organisation) K.C. Venugopal, being fielded from Kerala’s Alappuzha; Congress Working Committee member and sitting MP Shashi Tharoor from Thiruvananthapuram; Kodikunnil Suresh from Mavelikkara; D.K. Suresh from Bangalore Rural; Tamradhwaj Sahu from Mahasamund, and Jyotsna Mahant from Korba, both in Chhattisgarh.
Young, diverse list
Of the 39 candidates, 24 belong to the Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, Other Backward Classes (OBCs), and minority communities, while 15 candidates are from the general category, Mr. Venugopal said, addressing a press conference at the party headquarters with Congress treasurer Ajay Maken. He added that 12 candidates were below 50 years of age, eight were between 50 and 60, and 19 were above 61. As many as six State unit chiefs have been accommodated in the first list. “Our target is to win maximum seats and remove this fascist government,” Mr. Venugopal said.
On March 7, the party’s Central Election Committee (CEC) had discussed the names of aspirants for Delhi, Karnataka, Kerala, Chhattisgarh, Telangana, Sikkim, Tripura, Nagaland, Manipur, Meghalaya, and Lakshadweep.
The first list included candidates for 16 seats from Kerala, seven seats from Karnataka, six seats from Chhattisgarh, four seats from Telangana, two seats from Meghalaya, and one seat each from Tripura, Lakshadweep, Nagaland, and Sikkim.
In Kerala, the party retained most of its sitting MPs; only Thrissur MP T.N. Prathapan has been dropped, with senior leader K. Muraleedharan fielded in his place. Mr. Muraleedharan is the MP from Vadakara; Palakkad MLA Shafi Parambil has now been fielded from there.
Mr. Venugopal, who had not contested the Alappuzha seat in the 2019 Lok
Sabha elections, is now returning to the electoral fray.
At the CEC’s next meeting, slated for March 11, the Hindi heartland States, including Uttar Pradesh, are likely to be on the agenda.
There is intense speculation that Mr. Gandhi could contest a second seat from his family’s erstwhile stronghold in U.P.’s Amethi. His sister, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, could also make her electoral debut from Rae Bareli, a seat that will fall vacant as their mother Sonia Gandhi has decided not to contest the election.
Downplaying these rumours, Mr. Venugopal said the party would announce candidates when they are finalised.
“We are in election mode and on an aggressive path of campaigning, with Rahul Gandhi undertaking the Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra,” Mr. Venugopal said.
The yatra will end on March 17 in Mumbai with a mammoth rally.
Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge will write to all partners from the Opposition’s INDIA bloc, inviting them to attend that rally, Mr. Venugopal added.
With the tagline “Pehli Naukri Pakki” (first job is assured), the “right to apprenticeship” is one of the marquee promises in the Congress’s election manifesto, putting the issue of unemployment at the centre of its campaign against the Narendra Modi government.
The party proposes to organise a oneyear apprenticeship programme, with government, public or private sector organisation with a stipend of ₹1 lakh a year, for all persons under 25 years of age, who are college graduates or hold a diploma.
“What is our current approach to deal with unemployment? Give them petty cash in the form of unemployment allowance. What we are promising is making our youth employable, by giving them onthejob training. This provides them an income, which they have earned with dignity,” All India Professionals’ Congress chairperson Praveen Chakravarty, among the key members of the Opposition party’s manifesto committee, explained. He further argued that this will benefit the business which will get labour at reduced cost since the government will share the cost of the stipend and they will get skilled workers.
Mr. Chakravarty said the scheme will be extended to 20 lakh youth. Asked, whether the Congress’s estimate is too low, Mr. Chakravarty said, “It is like MNREGA, once we unroll the scheme we will know the demand. Even if it is more than 20 lakh there are 10 lakh private businesses that as per the GST data who have a revenue of more than ₹5 crore annually can afford to participate in the programme.”
This idea, Mr. Chakravarty said, came after consultations with more than two dozen economists and policy experts across the world. It also existed in the form of the Apprenticeship Act, 1962 which mandates firms to hire apprentices and as of date, 45,000 companies are enrolled under the law. “The voluntary apprenticeship programme is successfully running in many Scandinavian countries and Germany. But ours is unique because it makes it a right, just like we brought in MNREGA,” he added.
To take the idea to the young electorate and the firsttime voters, the party has mandated the Youth Congress to deliver guarantee cards across the country.