Kay Benedict

New Delhi: On the eve of UPA completing four years in office, Congress president Sonia Gandhi, joined by son and Amethi MP Rahul Gandhi, 10 AICC general secretaries and over a dozen state secretaries-in-charge went into a huddle to craft an effective publicity blitz to highlight the achievements of the Congress-led government in the last four years.

With 2009 Lok Sabha polls just a few months away, Congress top brass feels that the party has failed to take credit for path-breaking legislations such as NREGS, RTI and several flagship schemes like Bharat Nirman, national urban renewal mission, national rural health mission, mid-day meal scheme, Rs60,000-cr farm loan wavier and so on.

The party feels Left and BJP are subtly taking credit for schemes like NREGS in their respective states. The Congress strategy is to unleash state-specific campaigns for maximum effect.

While Congressmen at state and district levels are casual about it, it took senior RJD leader and rural development minister Raghuvansh Prasad Singh to make an appeal to the Congressmen “to create awareness and push for effective implementation of UPA government’s schemes like NREGS”.

On Thursday, Singh publicly told the Congressmen “to emulate Sonia and Rahul and show their commitment to the implementation of NREGS and other welfare programmes in rural areas.”

The 90-minute brainstorming session at 24 Akbar Road was also attended by AICC treasurer Motilal Vora and future challenges group chairman M Veerappa Moily. The meeting decided to direct all PCC and DCC chiefs to start a campaign to educate party cadre and local people about the welfare measures. Another meeting will be held on Monday.

“The state units of the party will be consulted. Central ministers will be sent to the states to hold seminars and participate in other publicity campaigns,” said general secretary Janardhan Dwivedi.

Source : DNA