Congress seeks to appease minorities in 2014 manifesto

Party taking heart from fact that seven out of eight candidates that won on Congress ticket in Delhi were from minority section

After the drubbing in the recent state Assembly polls, a wary Congress is looking to go the extra mile to reach out to minority communities, in the run-up to the 2014 general elections. On Monday, at a meeting with minority community representatives, chaired by Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi, the party assured the “UPA (United Progressive Alliance) government will be taking steps” to ensure innocent Muslim youth booked in terrorism cases would be set free.

In its manifesto, the Congress will seek to assuage the concerns of the Muslim community on this issue. The party will also ease access to minority scholarships and minority universities, as well as open more schools for the community.

Monday’s interaction was a step towards the Congress’s new “open-access” approach to drawing up the party’s manifesto for the 2014 elections. The party has already held a round of consultations with representatives of Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes. On the communal violence Bill, which had figured in the Congress’s last poll manifesto, senior Cabinet minister Salman Khurshid said, “We have assured the party is committed to the Bill and we wanted to table it in the Rajya Sabha, but could not in the last session. But after the necessary changes, having taken into consideration all views, it is ready to be tabled.”

The party is taking heart from the fact that seven of the eight candidates that won on Congress tickets in Delhi were from minority categories.

Among those who attended Monday’s meeting were the Congress’s minority cell chief Khurshid Ahmed Sayeed and Union ministers Rehman Khan, Jairam Ramesh, Oscar Fernandes and Khurshid.

Without naming Bharatiya Janata Party leader Narendra Modi, Rahul Gandhi warned the gathering on the need to “fight the politics that thrives on creating fear”.