In its last two terms at the heart of the ruling United Progressive Alliance coalition, Congress has championed a number of popular schemes to guarantee work for the poorest and free school meals for their children.

Its "pro-poor" credentials, however, have been undermined by high food inflation and a slump in economic growth, which has put a number of major investments on hold. Mr Modi supports fewer subsidies but is admired for higher rates of economic growth in Gujarat.

Mr Gandhi said his partys manifesto was Indias first to be drafted on the basis of five months of consultation with Indias lower paid workers and that a partnership between the economic sectors of this country and the poor was the only route to growth.

His mother Sonia said Congress would guarantee housing for all families below the poverty line but stressed the election would not simply be about prosperity and growth but upholding constitutional values of the country and striving for a united society.

Congress is expected to target Mr Modis failure to stop an anti-Muslim massacre in Gujarat in 2002 when more than 1000 people were killed in communal violence. It is expected to portray him as a divisive figure that inspires violence.

The partys health pledge was welcomed by campaigners who said the high cost of treatment had plunged more than 40 million people into poverty.

India is bottom of the table of public health financing. Forty to 50 million people have been pushed into poverty because they have had to pay for treatment they cannot afford. The poor and the near-poor will benefit most, so the right to health care is welcomed, but it must be translated into a cogent plan, said Dr Srinath Reddy of the Public Health Foundation India.

Two pilot projects for universal health care have been launched in Kerala and Karnataka and Congress pledged to focus on improvements to primary health provision. It said every district will have five mobile clinic vans with facilities for x-rays, mammography and blood testing.

It also pledged a toilet for every home to end Indias dubious status as the site of 60 per cent of the worlds open defecation.

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Rahul Gandhi's Congress Party offers India free health care in re-election bid