The Hindu : National : Gowda vows to fight for migrants' rights

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Sunday, May 27, 2007
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Gowda vows to fight for migrants' rights

Special Correspondent

PANAJI: The Janata Dal (Secular) released its election manifesto on Saturday, which has committed itself to declaring Kannada as one of the State's second languages.

The manifesto was released by party's president and former Prime Minister H.D. Deve Gowda in the presence of the party's secretary-general Danish Ali, Goa unit president Vinayak Naik, party leaders, office-bearers and workers.

The party is contesting 12 seats in the Goa Assembly elections scheduled for June 2. While releasing the manifesto, Mr. Deve Gowda spoke of the discrimination faced by poor migrant people in Goa and vowed to fight for their rights. "There should be no place for discrimination against anybody, we are all Indians," the former Prime Minister said and felt that this election must provide an answer to this issue in Goa.

Recalling the problems he and his party office-bearers had to face in Goa during last week, which led to waste of six days of campaigning, Mr. Deve Gowda called it "harassment by officials of the local administration," the kind he had faced for the first time in his public life.

Some of the important promises made by the Janata Dal (S) are imposition of blanket ban on all real estate development involving forcible evacuation of the poor and downtrodden and their exploitation by the affluent and special economic package, including the highly subsidised ration and food for families living below the poverty line.

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