Former Planning commission member and former Rajya Sabha MP Bhalchandra Mungekar led three All India Congress Committee (AICC) leaders arrived in Imphal on Tuesday on a two-day visit to the state for public consultation on its way to prepare party Manifesto which they called it ‘People’s Manifesto’ for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections in 2019.
Mungekar led three AICC leaders, mostly from the AICC Research department, have interacted with some sections of people including teachers on Tuesday.
The other two AICC leaders are Ranajit Mukherjee, secretary AICC Research department,West Bengal Pradesh Congress Committee and Dr Marlapudi Vijay Chandran, state co-ordinator AICC Research Department Andhra Pradesh.
The step of the AICC has been taken up after its president Rahul Gandhi constituted a Manifesto committee of the party to prepare the election manifesto by consulting all stakeholders.
With this objective, the AICC Manifesto Committee headed by various party leaders including former Finance Minister P Chidambaram have been travelling across the country, according to Prof Mungekar, the former vice chancellor of the University of Mumbai.
Later speaking to media at congress bhavan in Imphal this afternoon, Prof Mungekar said that the party has identified 41 topics and they are merged under 23 groups and he himself is the convenor of the education front.
Accusing that the existing government at centre has failed to bring quality education in the country, the AICC leader from Mumbai alleged that education become a ‘private commodity.’
“We are going back to Kolkata tomorrow after completing our Imphal consultation. We’ve already visited Guwahati,” said Mukherjee.
Another AICC team led by former Meghalaya Chief Minister Mukul Sangma who is the CLP leader is also expected to the visit Manipur soon in connection the same exercise, he felt.
Manipur Pradesh Congress Committee (I) president and MLA TN Haokip who took part along with the state’s party leaders in the day’s media interaction also responded to some of the questions briefly. He however informed that the announcement of the candidates for the Lok Sabha Polls 2019 will be done by the high command of the party at the centre.