Political parties in Tamil Nadu are gearing up for the 2021 assembly elections as they begin the formation of committees to handle various party affairs. The DMK on Sunday constituted an eight member committee headed by senior leader TR Baalu to prepare the party's election manifesto.
This committee includes Nilgiris Member of Parliament (MP) A Raja, Subbulakshmi Jagatheesan and P Selvaraj all of whom are joint general secretaries of the DMK. Thoothukudi MP Kanimozhi, Rajya Sabha MP Tiruchi Siva and party spokesperson TKS Elangovan have also been appointed to this committee.
In its 2019 manifesto for the Lok Sabha elections, the DMK had already made a host of promises, several of which still remain unfulfilled. The party had said that it will waive off all farm loans taken by small and medium farmers and education loans availed by students. They further stated that it promises to increase income tax exemption limit from Rs 5 lakh to Rs 8 lakh. The party had promised to scrap the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test for medical school if it won and this is likely to remain an assurance in its manifesto for the state assembly as well.
Last year, the DMK had prepared a separate manifesto for the Lok Sabha elections and a different one for the 21 vacant Assembly constituencies, 18 of which were witnessing bye-elections.
They had spoken about the continuation of the language policy and said the DMK would urge the Union Government to declare Tamil as a co-official language in all Central Government offices, institutions and nationalised commercial banks in the state.
The party had addressed problems uniquely pertaining to each constituency. But amongst the broader promises that were made in 2019 and are likely to be repeated are the devolution of funds to the state, the introduction of a pricing mechanism to control prices of petrol and diesel and increasing employability for the youth.
When it came to the bye-polls however the party had identified individual problems in every constituency and presented their promises for their development accordingly.
For instance, they promised to desilt the Vaigai dam in the Andipatti constituency while assuring the implementation of an integrated drinking water scheme for Manamadurai.