“Gear up for the electoral battle” was the message from the Congress party’s day-long samvad baithak (dialogue meeting) at Surajkund, Haryana, in the presence of party president Sonia Gandhi and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
The message lay in Mrs Gandhi’s opening remarks, her decision to set up a coordination committee and three sub-groups for effective coordination in the functioning of the organisation and the speeches made at the meeting.
Sources said Union minister Kamal Nath’s speech was focused and forthright and stressed on how to face the coming electoral challenge. Another minister, Mr Kapil Sibal, pointed out how politics was swiftly changing. And a third minister, Mr Sriprakash Jaiswal, drew attention to the challenge from regional parties.
Ajit Jogi suggested the Congress could build its election campaign on US President Barack Obama’s model. Congress general secretary Digvijay Singh also took part in the deliberations.
Over 40 Congress leaders of the total 66 who attended took part in the deliberations, on topics ranging from the current situation and economic challenges to implementation of the party manifesto.
The meeting saw a majority of leaders demanding a raise in the cap of six LPG cylinders per family to 12, along with a demand for a populist Budget with significant income-tax sops and programmes to reach out to all sections with the calculation that his would counter the fallout of the government’s tough economic measures.
At the same time, the government’s difficulties in pandering to populism were clear in the speeches of Prime Minister Singh and finance minister P. Chidambaram, who both said the primary challenge was to raise growth and cut the fiscal deficit for which difficult decisions were ne-cessary. Their speeches ga-ve no indication of how the government would meet populist demand when the situation calls for slashing government expenditure and raising revenue.