Passing a constitutional amendment to raise the 50% cap on reservations for SCs, STs and OBCs, a legal guarantee for MSP, and nationwide socio-economic and caste census are among the promises made by the Congress in its manifesto for the Lok Sabha elections.

The manifesto, focusing on five “pillars of justice” and 25 guarantees under them, was released on Friday at the AICC headquarters in the presence of Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi.

“We will immediately restore full statehood to Jammu and Kashmir,” the party stated in the manifesto.

The opposition party also promised to abolish the Agnipath programme and direct the armed forces to resume normal recruitment to achieve full sanctioned strength.

The Congress further promised Mahalakshmi scheme to provide Rs 1 lakh per year to every poor Indian family.

“I urge everyone to have a close look at our manifesto and you will see a ‘shandaar tasveer’ (beautiful picture) of our country in it,” the Congress president said.

“I can’t predict future. This is much closer election than propagated by media. We are going to win the election. There was a similar feeling generated by press when Vajpayee was nominated,” Rahul Gandhi said.