Get ready for polls, Sonia tell partymen

New Delhi: Sonia Gandhi, chief of the ruling Congress party, has asked the party leaders to get ready to face general elections.

The call came on the day the Congress' estranged allies in the Left Front accused Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of being obsessed with the Indo-US nuclear deal.

The Politburo of the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPM) is slated to meet in Delhi today to review the vexed political scenario, which has given rise to the prospect of early polls.

Sonia addressed a 75-minute meeting of central office bearers and the Congress Working Committee (CWC) members in-charge of various states at her 10 Janpath residence.

Her call is seen as an indication the party is bracing itself for the eventuality of early elections.

Emerging from the meeting, party general secretary Janardhan Dwivedi and the media cell chairman M. Veerappa Moily said Sonia's call to prepare for elections had nothing to do with the nuclear deal, but part of a process since the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government had entered the last year of the 2004 mandate.

They said the nuclear deal did not figure at the meeting at all.

The meeting decided to organise a brain storming session of the party towards July-end and has asked state units to draw up poll manifesto, district coordination and other committees with the aim of establishing connectivity with the voters.

Rallies

The state units have also been instructed to hold rallies and educate voters about achievements of the UPA Government during the past 49-months it has been in power.

The brain storming session will either be held in Delhi or one of its satellite towns. Besides the national office bearers and the CWC members, state unit presidents and legislative party leaders are also likely to attend the July meeting.

The Congress has already parried talks about differences between the prime minister and the party over the nuclear deal. Moily yesterday clarified that the prime minister was not taking any decision independent of the party in this regard.

This is being seen as a conscious attempt by the party to paint a rosy picture about the party being united on the contentious nuclear deal issue. The Left Front, however, instead of taking on the Congress party, continues to target the prime minister.

The CPM general secretary Prakash Karat asked Singh to give up a child-like obsession for the nuclear deal and concentrate instead of tackling the ever soaring inflation which on Monday touched the all time high of 11.42 per cent.

Karat's statement on Friday has set the tone for the CPM politburo meet, which may ratify the decision to withdraw its crucial support to the Congress-led government.

Although, Gandhi is backing the prime minister, who is believed to be insisting on going ahead with the India-specific safeguards agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the leadership is in a dilemma over taking the support of Mulayam Singh Yadav's Samajwadi party.

Getting the Samajwadi Party's support would become a necessity in the event the four Left parties, which together command over 60 MPs, withdraw their support to the government.