New Delhi: The Congress party released its manifesto for the Lok Sabha polls on Wednesday with senior leaders exuding confidence that the party will return to power. While party president Sonia Gandhi termed the manifesto as a “holy document”, vice president Rahul Gandhi said the document was the voice of the people of the country.

Rahul said, “The manifesto we have here is truly the voice of the people of the country. Instead of having discussions behind closed doors, we asked people for their suggestions. We interacted with businessmen, women, coolies, youth to ask them what to put in the manifesto.”

Congress president Sonia Gandhi refereed to the manifesto as a “holy document”. “For us the manifesto is not just a regular ritual like other parties but more of a holy document,” she said, adding that the manifesto is not a vote grabbing tool for the Congress.

“Will fight for India which belongs to all. Will fight for an India where the only thing that matters is that we are all Indians…Fight for a country which is not for a few but is for everyone,” Sonia added.

The Congress president stressed on the need to “struggle” for the secular and inclusive India in this election. “This election is about the unity of India. To maintain the dignity of the Constitution of India,” she said.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh also spoke on the occasion. Defending his government’s track record, the PM pointed out that 14 crore people were lifted above poverty line in the last 10 years.

“Growth has many dimensions, I am glad that Congress manifesto spells the vision for growth and job creation in great detail,” he said.

“This is a forward looking document, I invite you to read it carefully and to then endorse it”, the PM added.

The party’s manifesto was finalised by a committee headed by AK Antony.

The other members of the committee are P Chidambaram, Sushilkumar Shinde, Anand Sharma, Salman Khurshid, Sandeep Dikshit, Ajit Jogi, Renuka Chowdhary, P L Punia, Mohan Gopal, Jairam Ramesh and Digvijay Singh.

Antony said, “Rahul Ji wanted manifesto to reflect the voice of Indians. He had said that the 2014 manifesto should reflect aspirations of people across the nation.”

Antony said the manifesto was prepared in 5 months and that Rahul personally interacted with cross-sections of society across the country.