Promise to protect Mumbai’s pre-2000 slums typo: Congress

The Manifesto Implementation Committee which met on Monday discovered the ‘‘error,’’ said the chief of the Maharashtra unit, Prabha Rau, this evening. General secretary Margaret Alva, CM Vilasrao Deshmukh and AICC member Madhavsinh Solanki were among those who attended the meeting.

Until the Congress made the promise in the last assembly elections, the administration, based on a policy laid down by the erstwhile BJP-Shiv Sena government, had set 1995 as the cut-off date for legalising slums in the city.

Rau failed to explain why it had taken more than six months for the party to discover a printing mistake. ‘‘But 31 other promises mentioned in the manifesto have been fulfilled,’ she said, assuring media that she would specify them tomorrow.

‘‘More than half of the slumdwellers who were displaced under the 1995 deadline have been relocated, while the rest would be accommodated very soon,’’ Rau said.

The recent demolitions had evoked a spate of protests, which prompted the NCP to oppose them. Later, Congress chief Sonia Gandhi too had intervened. Now the sudden turnaround on the issue may trigger off another round of demolitions.

Sources said the development may be linked to the fact that rehabilitation costs are mounting for the cash-strapped government.