Fri Apr 3, 2009
NEW DELHI, April 3 (Reuters) - India's main Hindu-nationalist opposition party promised low taxes and interest rates to revive a slowing economy and a tough posture on Pakistan in an election manifesto on Friday aimed at boosting its poll ratings.
The Bharatiya Janata Party also promised to retrieve Indian money illegally stashed abroad, generate employment through massive infrastructure projects and give cheaper farm loans to cushion Indians from the global financial crisis.
It said it would cut housing interest rates, give tax exemption to citizens above the age of 60 and also waive personal income tax for hundreds of thousands of defence personnel and pensioners.
"We are giving a message to our voters that if you give us an opportunity then whatever we do we will do with honesty," the party's prime ministerial candidate Lal Krishna Advani said.
The BJP said India will resume peace talks with Pakistan only after Islamabad dismantled the "terrorist infrastructure" on its soil. "Without that there can be no comprehensive dialogue with Pakistan," spokesman Ravi Shankar Prasad said.
The party has accused the ruling Congress party in the past of being soft on national security, sharpening the criticism in the wake of the Mumbai attacks in November blamed on a Pakistan-based guerrilla group.
The BJP-led opposition alliance trails in most opinion polls for the month-long election beginning on April 13 and is struggling to find allies in potentially swing states.
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