First off the block and in election mode for lok Sabha elections 2014, the Shiromani Akali Dal’s Manifesto Committee held its first meeting at the party headquarters on Friday.
The meeting, chaired by the SAD secretary general Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa deliberated for over two hours upon the party’s likely vision statement for the parliamentary poll campaign.
Senior Akali leaders including Jathedar Tota Singh, party's general secretaries Sewa Singh Sekhwan, Mahesh Inder Singh Grewal, Prof Prem Singh Chandumajra were also present.
SAD secretary Dr Daljit Singh Cheema, also the Member Secretary of the Committee, conducted the proceedings.
Talking to mediapersons after the meeting, Committee spokesman Harcharan Bains said that the Committee would solicit views of various wings of the party, as also consult a wide spectrum of opinion makers to ensure that the party’s manifesto truly reflected the aspirations of the people.
“As a mass-based party, we do not believe in top-down approach and always allow our vision to be shaped by inputs from grass-roots, making opinions, sentiments and aspirations of the people the central component of our manifesto,” he said, adding that the same approach would be followed this time too, and that is the brief given to the Committee by the party president Sukhbir Badal and Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal.
The Committee has decided to meet again on January 31 to get direct feedbacks from various sections of the people, especially youth, women, dalits, farmers, trade and industry and farmers, apart from the employees.
Bains said that the SAD stood for the setting up of a genuinely federal structure in the country as it believed that centralisation of authority in the country has reduced the states the position of beggars and dissipated the development potential of the country as a whole.