After Lok Sabha, Congress places bet on ‘guarantees’ for comeback in 2025 Delhi Assembly Elections

From getting ration cards — capped at a little over 72 lakh in the city — issued in their names to providing a roof over their heads and “realistic” subsidies on power and water, sources said the Congress will give the residents of the city’s slums specific guarantees as part of its Assembly election campaign.

“After the conclusion of the Lok Sabha elections, Delhi Congress president Devender Yadav asked the party to focus on enhancing visibility on the one hand and resurrecting its organisation down to the grassroots level on the other; the next phase will have guarantees for various focus groups — especially slums and unauthorised colonies — at its core,” a senior Congress leader said.

The Congress had pitched its five ‘Nyay’ and 25 guarantees based on welfare schemes aimed at farmers, women, the unemployed and the poor across the Capital during its Lok Sabha campaign.

Based on the feedback that the party received both during its campaign for the Lok Sabha polls and at organisational meetings since, a source said, the Congress is now in the process of chalking out specific local issues which it can blend with its national guarantees.

“The party is in the process of consulting experts on the specifics of each guarantee but is certain that these have to be tangible and deliverable especially when it comes to slums and unauthorised colonies, which have been our generational strongholds,” said another leader.

“These guarantees will be at the core of the party’s manifesto and are important not only because of the party’s focus on such areas, but also because of the SC, ST, OBC combination of their residents which we intend to focus on for the larger aim of re-establishing ourselves in the city’s political mainstream,” the leader added.