Chandigarh, Feb. 7 :
Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee will address election rallies at Palwal and Mahendragarh in Haryana on February 11. BJP leaders here said the party will also try to rope in atleast six Bollywood stars to woo the electorate. The party has made a pact with the ruling Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) for the Assembly polls on February 22.
BJP leader Ram Bilas Sharma said Vajpayee would be accompanied by Union home minister L.K. Advani, parliamentary affairs minister Pramod Mahajan, minister of state for home I.D. Swamy, consumer affairs and public distribution minister Shanta Kumar, former tourism minister Uma Bharati and former Delhi chief minister Madanlal Khurana.
Andhra Pradesh chief minister N. Chandrababu Naidu, defence minister George Fernandes, Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Farooq Abdullah and his Punjab counterpart Parkash Singh Badal have also agreed to campaign for the BJP-INLD combine.
The INLD has already hired more than 25 video vans to exhibit its development activities in the last six months. The Congress has decided to depend on Sonia Gandhi's vote-catching abilities.
The INLD, in its manifesto, has promised uninterrupted power and water supply.
It has also promised drinking water provision in each village and proper sewerage system. The electorate has been assured of the implementation of the crop insurance scheme, but no time-frame has been fixed for realising these objectives.
The manifesto assures the people of an early solution to the Sutlej-Yamuna link canal, an issue in which the state has been in a tug-of war with Punjab for several years. It also proposes changes in the education system to provide vocational training.
The party has also vowed to implement reservation guidelines in the private sector and reduced rates of interest for loans for tubewells and tractors. The manifesto promises to introduce English from class one. Prepared by a three-member committee headed by state finance minister Sampat Singh, the manifesto vows to take up raising the exemption limit of income-tax with the Centre. The party has also promised to set up a panel to monitor the manifesto's implementation. A combined INLD-BJP manifesto is expected to be released soon.
A political front, touted as the Third Font, excluding the Congress, the BJP-INLD combine and the Left, has come together and announced a common minimum programme as their manifesto.
The parties include the Samajwadi Party (National), the All-India Shiromani Akali Dal, the Shiromani Akali Dal (Amritsar), the Bharatiya Kisan Union (Naryana), the National Congress Party, the All-India Punjabi Naujawan Sabha, the Haryana Pichadi Janata Party and the All-India Farmers Co-ordination Committee.
The front members met at Ambala yesterday to decide the candidates they would support. The front is trying to get the BSP to join it. If BSP chief Kanshi Ram agrees, his party would automatically gain the front partners' support.
All India Shiromani Akali Dal state unit general secretary Kartar Singh Takkar said the front's manifesto proposed a reasonable minimum amount of payment to labourers and a support price for farmers.
He said if the front came to power it would waive the outstanding loans of small shopkeepers, poor labourers and farmers.





